ChatGPT vs 'old fashioned' Googling Though for me 'old fashioned' googling is from when google actually seemed to work ok, pre the massive decline in utility that we've seen. Now they're probably motivated to make it even worse... This is the paper: academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

Now on MS365 at work, gradually people use reactions for emails (maybe cuts down emails a bit). Minor point, and maybe UK cultural (?) but most common intention is thanks - thumbs up here just seems a little... sarcastic? patronising? (fine for ok, great, agree). Really need 'thanks'

Our next reading group session at Bath Spa is on Entangled Pedagogy, next Tuesday lunchtime for an interesting chat on our approaches to technology and pedagogy.

Join us on Bluesky for #LTHEchat with guests Mirjam Sophia Glessmer (@mirjamglessmer.bsky.social) and Robert Kordts (@robertkordts.bsky.social) on Wednesday, 12th November 2025 at 20:00 GMT to discuss How to teach for sustainability lthechat.com/2025/11/07/l...

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

The Award for Digital Transformation, in partnership with Jisc is presented to Bath Spa University - Digital Transformation Strategy. The approach aligned to the Jisc framework. Executive leadership facilitated a strong and effective culture open to change and methodically operationalised. #ALTc25

Over the last few years has been a well discussed crisis around attendance and engagement at university. Early anecdotal evidence I’m hearing across multiple departments is that for this year and these new first years, things are better…? I’m curious whether people are seeing this elsewhere.

Friday's Bath Spa HE Reading Group is on AI as a 'wicked problem'. Interested in any other alternative conceptualisations of the challenges or affordances of AI that are out there. Look forward to seeing colleagues there!

New holiday out of office "Your email has sadly not found me; I am however well"

After being in Africa the last weeks, the U.K. was feeling very grey on my return this week, rain, wind, cloud, more cloud etc. So extra points to these trees on campus making an effort with the Autumnal colours.

Guardian view on campus discontent: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Today begins the great teaching observation cycle (25/26), in which I learn all about an eclectic range of random subjects over the year. Helpful for my father’s dinner party advice: learn enough about a subject to chat to an expert for long enough to change the subject.

My pleasant surprise travelling is when unexpected places have eduroam. Adding Cape Town and Johannesburg airports to the list.

The latest @seda-ed-dev.bsky.social Educational Developments Magazine Issue 26.3 September 2025 is out now and free to read. Please share with your networks. www.seda.ac.uk/wp-content/u...

This will hopefully be helpful for many colleagues Mentimeter better LaTeX maths support: help.mentimeter.com/en/articles/...

The great return from break email sorting begins. Please tell me there is a paper out there analysing the best strategy to tackle for the several hundred emails? Newest first? Oldest? Filter out regular and storm through them first? Go to team or students first? Spend an hour on method not emails?

When presenting many people have trouble getting what they want on a screen. Two shortcuts, helpful to know for quick access: Alt+Tab - switch between open windows e.g. Slides and browser/software. Good when teaching online on one screen. Win+P - change room screen, mirror or a second display?

PPT top 2 keyboard shortcuts for teaching: (B) Blank screen, take the slides away from attention, shift focus. Sometimes the best slide is no slide. Online, also consider stop sharing when not in use. (#+Enter) jumping to a slide, or the end can be handy and avoid click click click, oops too far.

As it's the start of the year, I've been supporting various new lecturers and will be starting obs soon. There are many knowledge gaps around quite useful keyboard shortcuts that can help with some presenting needs. There are a lot of shortcuts, a power user thing normally, so I'll post a top few.

In the social media space, one of the absolutely key aspects of Bluesky, aside from decentralisation, is user control over what you see. In terms of development work I hope they lean into this more. Have inbuilt tools to help you (with no code/knowledge) build your own feeds on rules etc.

The bigger problem we've had for 20+ years is not fees, it's living costs. This was clear 20 years ago, worse (much worse) now and you have 2/3rds of students working so many hours for pay that it negatively impacts on their study (before you add the covid hangover effects on that age group).

Started today with a wider group for the morning and our module group this afternoon, looking at more structured and systemic development as a researcher. Recently we've had more staff join as well as PhD students, often with intention to help a transition or simply make things count this year!

First reading group session of the year today. Seems a good topic for early in the year. Looking forward to a good discussion.

I enjoy the pedagogy #LTHEChats but I think we so rarely discuss “how” we do basic office/admin/academic life stuff, it’s good to have more sharing on this too with this week’s chat. Also yes need more chats on that with students too. Bring on more academic life hacks and processes :)

New #WeeklyResourceRoundup to help HE educators teach effectively and inclusively wordpress.aber.ac.uk/e-learning/2... #AberPGCTHE #AcademicSky #EduSky #LTHEchat @jisc.bsky.social @transformassess.bsky.social @qaa.ac.uk @edufuturist.bsky.social @activelearningnet.bsky.social @aldinhe.bsky.social

Experimenting with some short tip videos in portrait (to be e.g. within feeds) for staff for pros/cons. No, I'm not starting a tik tok. At this time of year I often need to set up folders for each of the students on a course (own files, shared folders) - this been useful in the past.

May I congratulate all Media Studies teachers on being provided with such a wealth of case studies and examples continuously. Or commiserate at how often you need to update your slides. Today's example: the wording of headlines on the same topic

Social media self-care action for 25/6: increase cat accounts followed and thus in main feed (aim for 1/20 posts to be a cat) Suggested cat accounts anyone? (Bonus points if university linked, I don't think Rolf in Warwick made it over from the place that will not be named)

#LTHEchat 336 Effective Note Making Systems from Paper to AI Join us with guest Dr Natalie Tasler @drntasler.bsky.social on Wednesday 24th September at 8pm GMT

Our creative students have formed an artistic display from our giant outside letters that usually spell out name, representing now the current state of higher education.

Today we welcome the second group of our new September cohort to our PGCHE programme. We should have quite a diverse range of roles, subjects and experience today to come together as a new peer group.

Big march with flags over the weekend.

Our HE Reading Group @bathspauni.bsky.social kicks of end of month with our Autumn set of chat topics and suggested readings. (BSU staff see sharepoint for more details; contact hep to join group or single event). This season, looking at belonging, AI, entangled pedagogy and the student experience

Adding #unfundedhobbyist to the CV

Part of the Human Intelligence series on Radio 4 of short episodes on thinkers through history, is on Teachers. Here's Mary Somerville: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Catch up and network time, with the South West Educational Developers Forum mini-meet online today. Bath, Bath Spa, Bristol, UWE, Exeter and independent HE consultants locally represented this time.

wonkhe.com/blogs/the-fi... Greenwich and Kent come together under one vice chancellor and governance structure. Massive news.

A @wonkhe.bsky.social blog on the OfS idea to link tuition fees to TEF results. It's unworkable as it was when it was first muted 10 years ago. It suggests that the OfS doesn't understand how the TEF works or the impact on the sector of making such ill-founded suggestions wonkhe.com/blogs/back-t...

My favorite side project these days: Analyzing the Bluesky Science community (with @mkeyoung.bsky.social). Just finished a write-up of an angle not explored until now: A look at the most popular posts from the most influential network members. Lots of examples and some funky graphics—fun to explore!

Bath Spa PhD students and early career researchers: we’ll have the next cohort of our Researcher Development module this year Starts with the open RDP workshop “Developing yourself as a researcher” Get in touch to sign up. Combine with teaching modules for PGCert.

Finally, bookmarks (sorry, saved posts). This was a major thing missing for all the papers and resources people would post.

Welcome to the first half of our new PGCHE cohort starting today as part of a two day event. Look forward to seeing your micro-teach sessions tomorrow.

End of an era, the original chart topping podcast and one of the final places that doesn’t dumb down. Don’t screw the next era up BBC pretty please. www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/...

So we’re just skipping September and going straight to October with the weather huh? Always felt it a shame that UG students basically arrive when the weather turns then leave just as it may start to get good.

Report on our small study, done as we returned from lockdowns, looking at staff and students' understanding of terminology around learning and teaching: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Academia may not give you job security, flexibility, or wealth, but it will let you unexpectedly connect to eduroam in foreign cities

My review of Innovations in Teaching History is out + free to access! A fab book with useful pedagogies for #18c studies + beyond! This preludes my article on teaching 18thc history (+ other histories) through an emotions lens. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #pedagogy #history #teaching

Decided to randomly read Magna Carta as was too hot last night. Given it's basically a list of stuff Barons were annoyed about, there are some 'yeah, fair enough' general rules and some that feel oddly specific and you just know everyone was like 'ok, fine Brian, we'll put that one in as well'

Will have this open until 26th for further interest/applications. #LTHEChat people may be interested, especially if a programme leader but new to external examining.

August, where I finally make a dent in my journal articles to read list and as a consequence promptly download 4x as many new articles for the list.