Ah, it’s summer time, the days when the perpetual deadlines during the semester don’t exist. It also means the insanity slows down a bit, so I have time for less serious things. Ultra Spiritual Life is a series of parody videos by a YouTube user with account name AwakenWithJP. The videos vary from beyond hysterical […] … learn more→

Dear Readers. Shaun Lehmann, Katherine Firth (of the Research Voodoo blog) and I are currently in the process of writing a new book for Open University Press called ‘Writing Trouble’. The proposed book evolved out of our work on the Thesis Bootcamp program, a writing intervention originally designed by Peta Freestone and Liam Connell. Over […] … learn more→

Recent measures taken at a number of UK universities – including cutbacks on modern languages staffing, redundancies and in some cases the closure of courses – show the unprecedented pressures that UK universities are facing (and the serious implications these pressures have for an already embattled modern languages community). Modern languages disciplines can exercise some control […] … learn more→

  Once upon a time, when I worked in schools, early childhood teachers routinely issued young children with a ‘pen license’. A pen license was much sought after as it meant that a child could ‘advance’ to using a pen instead of a pencil. Using indelible ink meant that the child was able to write legibly […] … learn more→

Mindfulness is a hot topic these days, but its potential importance to higher education has not yet been broadly recognised. It can be described as a form of meditation and a way of living. It is a mental discipline that involves not only sharpening present-moment attention but also cultivating the attitude with which we pay […] … learn more→

Bad working conditions in the field of academia are gaining attention across the world. In the UK, researchers and university staff have launched campaigns to fight labour casualisation. In the US, graduate assistants are seeking to unionise for fair pay and benefits. In the Czech Republic, however, the subject is practically non-existent. The Czech government […] … learn more→

Despite computing education in UK schools going through a massive revolution over the past few years to try and make it more relevant to our increasingly technology driven lives, the new GCSE in computer science has failed to attract much interest from students. Figures from the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual) show only […] … learn more→

It’s no secret identity politics is a big factor in success these days; I mean, we’ve people “self-identifying” as black or American Indian, and scoring pretty good jobs just on the basis of that identification. Granted, this only holds until the “true” identity, whatever that means, is found out, but not every such faker is […] … learn more→

For several years now, by many successive notes, I have considered the question of what I have decided to name now only “higher education”. This little oratorical precaution is really meaningful, since it forms the basis of the whole of my reasoning set out below. I am not saying “education”, I am not saying “education”, […] … learn more→

Who is the client in your relationship with your PhD supervisor? No, really; who sets the scope of work, and who provides a professional service? I know it’s heretical to bring consulting language into the hallowed halls of academia, but trust me on this one. Seeing yourself as a client seeking the specialist advice of […] … learn more→