Life, The Universe and Everything: Reflections and Rants

  • DH2011 Serious Games

    I’m teaching a new course on Serious Games for the undergraduates this semester. I’ve taught games at undergrad level previously, but changes in the landscape of gaming knowledge among students means I must/can change the approach.

  • Blended, Remote and Hybrid Futures?

    Teaching is like a river – you can’t step into the same one twice. The streams of online teaching and remote work which we paddled in before COVID have been swept away by the torrent of “emergency remote learning “; the banks are broken, and new channels gouged out. The flood has, hopefully, passed and…

  • Writing and Running Online RPGS

    As Gaelcon draws ever closer, folks are thinking about writing games for the con – online this year. I’ve got a few notes on convention game prep to share here, and when I get some feedback and ideas to add, a revised version of this might go on the IGA website as a resource.

  • Gaelcon 2020: Gaming & Conventions Online

    In the socially distant summer of 2020, there are two sorts of gamers in the world – those who’ve been living the online life, and those who’ve been stuck home alone. Most gamers have found out how to get online for games, and found some of the big online conventions, both gaming and non-gaming. But…

  • University in 2020

    It is the summer of 2020 and higher education is in crisis again : – but this is a big one. There are projections that are many private universities will go broke in the next year to 18 months because in the light of the coronavirus crisis the product they’re selling is not something that…

  • D&D Online, Summer 2020

    I have a lot to do this summer, but creative downtime is good for productivity  so I’m going to start a light D&D game online. There are a lot of people out there who want to play D&D for the first time, and/or play online for the first time so I’m going to justify this…

  • Maps (The Book Posts 3)

    Maps tend to be under used in history although they are in essential tool for understanding all branches of historical scholarship and they are particularly vital in any sort of military history.

  • Asynchronous discussion in online learning

    I wanted to talk about asynchronous discussions in online learning because they are the most commonly used tool in online learning apart from lecture capture videos (which are really terrible.) The problem with the asynchronous discussions in online learning is that if you build it they won’t come. You can’t just put some readings up…

  • Self-Publishing (The Book Posts 2)

    In nursing this research project along through about 20 years I learned a few things on the way about publishing, and self publishing

  • Research (The Books Posts 1)

    The practice of historical research has changed significantly in the space of the past few decades. When I began doing research on United Nations peacekeeping for my PhD, primary research required visiting archives, reading original documents and taking notes by hand, usually in pencil. Reflecting on that now that I have done a book on…


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