Apropos of no gifting news whatsoever, I'm reminded of this interesting bit of history. Early RFID like spying 'thing': en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thi...

Hoping marking being in many #academicsky and #LTHEChat minds right now, may hear a few more suggestions for new lecturers on tips/practical approaches you all take. Yes, I'm supposed to be marking right now.

Our upcoming MA module on digital learning and higher education is a good follow on for the final project on the PGCHE, partnering more academic study and personal exploration with the previous practical teaching work. Alternatively, as a standalone micro credential. Free for Bath Spa staff.

Blackboard ultra has updated navigation and some look (mostly good, some tweaks needed already noted and planned). The new banner image set up however is erm, not going down well, with it labelled "Dystopian Banner Image Mode" on the official feedback forum/site. Links to a common VLE problem 1/3

This definitely falls into the TIL category - would not have guessed this young and back formation *after* escalator! Side note: Merriam-Webster account is good fun to follow.

So... I've created a starter pack of UK government organisations currently on Bluesky: go.bsky.app/JHsY1Wz (Currently includes all those listed under ministerial and non-ministerial departments here www.gov.uk/government/o... - let me know any I've missed, or got wrong)

Latest Ed Devs dropped this week.

UG physics: learn SI units; memorise a bunch of constants. PG physics: let’s just make them all 1. Frees up time to think of more silly names for things.

Bath Spa staff who are mentoring are welcome to join our L7 module on mentoring and coaching in HE. First session is open to all as a stand alone intro - Mon 19th Jan. Good option post PGCHE or FHEA, supportive for future SFHEA applications, or just as CPD and a supportive cohort.

Yesterday we had one of our regular teaching advice sessions with guests and new uni teachers. One question was around marking - managing workload, challenges. Something still primarily a very solo activity, so, dear bsky hive mind: What are your practical tips/approaches/advice for new markers?

Since Jan 1 2025, which feels like four trillion years ago, research has been shared on here 5 million whole-ass times. Bluesky recently passed 2 billion posts IN TOTAL. So 0.25% of the entire site's traffic was citations to research. That is actually massively high. Is it? Yes. Here's why.

Join us for #LTHEchat Wednesday 7th January at 8pm GMT to discuss Navigating the New OfS Quality Era: What It Means for Students, Staff and the Sector with guests @puiyin.bsky.social @katharinehubbard.bsky.social Kevin Campbell-Karn, David Webster and Paula Han lthechat.com/2026/01/05/l...

Why yes, I'd love to use 2FA 15 times just for the same IT system before I can do any work in 2026, how kind to oblige. I am however disappointed by the lack of the usual forced update that normally starts the working week.

Useful recorded version of the keynote for those of us who missed it. Some handy graphs and data, but also some things to think about re: future of academic social media.

Your regular reminder that 'Digital Native' is both wrong but also damaging. A lot of the frustrations here I've heard from staff recently. One of the approaches around some issues is also mentioned - a focus on professionalism. Several departments are making this more explicit now, expectations.

Negative examples chat on Tea for Teaching podcast. Useful to consider different types of examples you (can) use in teaching, and their purpose. teaforteaching.com/422-negative...

Re the AI fake paper citations: As I found It amusingly circular, I put one of the lists of references identified in a reply into copilot and asked it to check them, doi, say if not exist or think typos etc. It returned them as not existing (along with suggesting what might be based on).

Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵 Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...

Maybe it's just me, but if you have to apply an URGENT UPDATE to my computer and software pretty much every day, disrupting work with annoying pop ups, stopping work entirely, every day, then.... I maybe don't have the greatest confidence in the security and stability of the system.

New REF categories just dropped

Ed Devs and similar on BSky, do join in and keep things running for the weekly chats. Another good way for connections and working with people for a brief period.

Our last reading group of the year, on Monday, takes a look at this year's iteration of the annual student academic experience survey. Hoping for some useful discussions around trends, observations from different departments, and more. (Get in touch with suggested papers for next year!)

Good turn out in town for our colleague Prof Sarah Hayes’ lecture From hand to screen to cloud - what is your postdigital positionality? at the BRLSI (and then the pub). Discussing themes from her book and debated and issues since. brill.com/display/titl...

I suppose ads in AI systems seem like an appropriate marriage. Two things companies try to shove everywhere to the extent they really annoy people. Next gen equivalent of SEO is going to be weird.

I wonder what proportion of academics believe they’d be promoted on the basis of their teaching impact.

Something to read to add to the discussions around engagement - why does thinking feel so hard? carlhendrick.substack.com/p/why-does-t...

Here we go: wonkhe.com/blogs/budget...

Whilst I'm not a fan of 'anything with X is written by AI' type claims - I like certain ways of writing and delving into details... this is very interesting in terms of different stylistic elements in current LLMs re: wikipedia articles: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...

Join us for this week’s #LTHEchat, which will explore ‘Meeting students where they are: Making independent study work for every learner’ with Nikita-Marie Bridgeman ( @nbridgeman.bsky.social ) on Wednesday, 8-9 pm GMT. Read the blog post at: shorturl.at/jzhWE

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).