Uncategorized | Frances Bell

When life brings you ‘Artificial Intelligence’ turn to Feminism

I am planning to write a reflection on the amazing experience that was the OER24 Conference but that will take time so for now, I will tell you about the finale – a Gasta session that was stage-managed by the Chief Gastateer Tom Farrelly. Tom is a golden man who will be in my heart…

Loosely connected thoughts on the anniversary of the death of my son Dan Bell – Part 1

1. Friday 1 July is the first anniversary of Dan’s death. I find writing very difficult and have done over some time. Still, I know that writing (privately and publicly) is a good way for me to address that difficulty. Writing, thinking, reading, talking with good friends, loving my family and friends, sewing, knitting, quilting:…

#FemEdTechQuilt – Getting There

The FemEdTech Quilt project has been an amazing project and we are not there yet – we have to get not one, but now four quilts to #OER20. The quilt has been in planning since summer 2019, and we launched it in November 2019 in a post at OER20 conference website. It seemed like quite…

Acknowledging and Making Women More Visible on Social Media Platforms – It’s Complicated

In recent days, there has been a trend (not sure if it’s a meme) going around where a tweeter names 10 women to thank and asks others to pass it on, for example Thank 10 women and keep it going. @francesbell @LouMycroft @anjalorenz @cnngugi @catbroon @gconole @DianaBannister @Frau_Professor @pati_santos_r @Nicola_Marsden and some networks and organizations:…

Questionably open and not always by choice

In preparing my ALT format piece for OER19, I thought about these questions in the context of my work as a volunteer IT Buddy at my local library in the town of Macclesfield in the North West of England. Why open? Open for whom? Whose interests are served? In what ways has the open agenda…

Crafting as a networking and wellbeing activity for #Femedtech

Femedtechdata I am pretty passionate about the network that currently appears as a Twitter hashtag #femedtech, and as a Twitter account @femedtech that has existed as shared curation space since April 2018. We have a different curator every 2 weeks, each of whom brings their own perspective and practices, growing our network (as you can…

Femedtech -curation and what next? #femedtech

Femedtech network at time of writing Femedtech (see brief history) currently comprises a Twitter handle @femedtech and a hash tag #femedtech and a network of great people who engage variously with femedtech. There was some great collaboration in evolving the concept of femedtech – much work done behind the scenes by talented and busy women….

What are the literacies of resisting the new norm(al)? #altc

I gave (with the considerable help of the other participants in the room) a 20 minute presentation at ALTC 2017, in the Empowerment in Learning Technology Theme, here is the abstract and here is an autoplay version of the slides There are some speaker notes here that indicate what was said along with the slides. The…

The Paradise (hopefully not lost) of #OER17

Last week I was lucky enough to attend OER17 an Open Education conference, The Politics of Open. When I heard at the close of OER16 that was the theme and that Josie Fraser and Alek Tarkowski were the Chairs, I was thrilled. I did wonder if that ‘politics’ aspect might be be off-putting for some….

Opening up Wikimedia Content and Communities #OER17 Keynote

Lucy Crompton-Reid, the Chief Executive of Wikimedia UK, and Karaoke Queen, introduced herself to us, revealing her broad experience, and enthusiasm for Wikipedia. Lucy was very happy when Jim Groom made this statement at OER16 She is passionate about the use of Wikipedia and associated projects in education, formal and informal. Education is a natural…