Data freedom fighters, Data terrorist or Data Gangsters

Data is a funny thing, I feel like its a riddle that we all are acutely aware off existing however seem paralysed to do anything about nor own it. What do I produce but never see, never own but has direct impact on everything around us and not just me ? The data conversation is […]

A micro what? MicroMasters descrbed via the medium of cake

For those unaware what a MicroMasters is let’s talk cake (I would like to state now if you don’t like cake then replace the word cake with pie or whatever makes you happy). The Cake shop Imagine if I went to a specialist cake shop which was world ranked in the top 50 cake shops […]

Big Humans & UoE Teaching and Learning Conference 2019

I attended the university if Edinburgh Teaching and learning conference this week. It’s the second year of the conference and browsing the session list it looked mega intimidating with references to papers and pedagogies plastered all over the place. Now I need to be honest (not Flea Bag honest but honest) before I blurb anymore. […]

A letter to me about me for me but you can read (just dont tell me!)

I am bad on reflecting, It’s something that is alien to me and feels kinda awkward however over the last year I have tried to challenge myself to try new things (sounds dodgy) with some of my peers (they will remain nameless) suggesting it may help (like a fart in an elevator). So one year […]

Chatbot Design Workshops and club Tropicanna

The propoal After I publihsed my blog about the Festival of creative learning chatbot workshop I bumped into the Lisa Dawson (Director of Student Systems and Administration) who asked if we could condense the 3 hour workshop into 45 mins, run it 4 times at an away day and go to the zoo (queue the […]

AI bias via the medium of the Alien Franchise

Firstly, can I state this is not a blog about how Aliens is the superior movie compared to Alien and needless to say we want to discuss Alien Resurrection (its slightly better than Sharknado). Instead this will be a quick post on bias and AI via the medium of character’s from the Alien franchise. Bias […]

Shape Shifting and Automated Teaching

In my current position I am working on helping to identify and deliver the technology that would assist in the delivery of Master level courses at scale. Before the pedagogy evangelists go all Opus Dei on me let me stress that I am a firm believer that technology is not the definitive answer alone (without good design or […]

FCL: Teaching Bot Hackathon

As part of the University of Edinburgh’s Festival of Creative Learning myself, Stewart Cromar and Marcello Crolla decided to host a Hackathon on chatbots. The premise of the hackathon wasn’t to delve into the technology and build a new skynet. It was too try and make the technology more accessible by removing the technology and […]

AI & Education, the great myth?

So, AI in education, what’s going on or should I say what’s not going on? AI has transformed from something associated with science fiction to everyday fact (e.g. smart phones camera subject detection to banking apps). AI is an umbrella term encompassing numerous technologies and concepts (e.g. machine learning, natural language understanding, robotics etc) these technologies […]

I haven’t got a clue how that works….but thats ok

Sometimes when I am sitting in meetings or speaking to colleagues regarding software deployments, coding changes, databases, conversational design tech even blogs I might say the words “I haven’t got a clue what that is or how it works” (queue your best Luke Skywalker The Empire Strikes back scream of ‘No!’) and sometimes they laugh […]

Author: mblaney