Weeknote 19/2025

As I type this, I’m sat with a coconut Flat White at Sheepfolds Stables next to the cathedral that is the Stadium of Light. My daughter’s at an ETC psychology workshop. I watched the first leg of Sunderland’s Championship playoff semi-final against Coventry City, which they won (unexpectedly, given their recent run of results). I’m looking forward to the second leg on Tuesday.

The weather has been glorious this week, meaning that we’ve spent time at the beach after work/school, as well as in the garden. Although it was a public holiday in the UK on Monday, as I mentioned in my last weeknote, I had taken off the previous Thursday for International Workers Day and to celebrate nine years of WAO. So I did a bit of work on Monday.

My main focus again this week has been the BBC AI Literacy project, for which I wrote about what makes a good framework. Stephen Downes used it to criticise a position he considers problematic. I responded with a blog post explaining why literacy practices are predicated on community, which Stephen again commented on, more favourably this time.

We’re working on a framework and report based on our desk-based research, interviews, and survey (expert-only). I’m experimenting with ways of showing that Critical AI Literacies (name TBD) are predicated on Digital Literacies, Critical Media Literacies, and Data & Information Literacies:

In addition to that work, which is coming along nicely, I’ve been working on the Amnesty International UK community project. The particularly crunchy thing with that collaboration is that, as we explained a couple of years ago for a different project, communities not only exist across different spaces, but need different types of spaces for different kinds of interaction.

A bit of new (in-person!) facilitation work came through via the DCC, and it’s looking promising with regards to the next step of the Verifiable Credentials work with Skills Development Scotland. Things are OK at the moment, but it’s important to always have one eye on the pipeline. In general, there haven’t been many briefs, grants, and incoming requests for around a year now. And it’s not just us — most co-ops, agencies, and freelancers we know are in the same position. Perhaps, as Brian Merchant points out, the AI jobs crisis is here and now?

Along with an approximately-monthly exhortation to support my work at Thought Shrapnel, I published:

• ChatGPT Prime, “an immortal spiritual being in synthetic form” 
• It is perhaps likely then that at a time of crisis, these armed drones could be deployed operationally over the UK
• You can now use Bluesky without using Bluesky infrastructure
• You stop performing. You stop pretending. And that’s freedom.
• Authoritarian versions of AI used to consolidate power
• If you think that humans are somehow inherently more trustworthy than AI, then you haven’t been paying attention
• An effective way to implement GenAI into assessment
• Criti-hype, a term I find both absurd and ugly-cute, like a pug
• In my opinion that’s just being nosy

Health-wise, I’m OK, but I think I’m going to have to stop running until I’ve got at least a diagnosis about my heart condition. I love running outside, and had no problem running 5k on the beach last Sunday and past Morpeth golf course on Tuesday. However, on Friday, I just couldn’t run on the treadmill at lunchtime, and then on Saturday managed 5k with a pretty huge heart rate spike at the start. I was absolutely knackered afterwards, which isn’t usual. I’m continuing to lift weights, just resting a bit more between sets.

I know I keep banging on about it, but suddenly developing a(nother) chronic health condition is a fairly life-changing event, particularly when it stops me doing something which is so important for both my physical and mental health. I should stress that, having been fitter than 95% of people my age, and doing most of my work sat down at a desk, I’m pretty sure that I’m still absolutely smashing it on the ‘being productive’ front 😅

Although my daughter’s team had a couple of matches this week, she was unable to play. On Thursday, Grace was running back from her PE lesson to get changed to get out for break, and turned her ankle on a kerb. Her ankle is massively swollen, and the hospital have confirmed (after an X-Ray) that it’s not broken. It’s now a bit of a race against time for her to get over the injury for the County Cup final next weekend.

As I write this, my son Ben is on duty as a lifeguard at a local leisure pool. He’s had a good week, including the end of Sixth Form celebration day, which involved wearing the suit we bought him a couple of weeks ago, having lots of photos taking, and (it turns out) drinking plenty of alcohol in the evening. It’s the start of his A-Level exams next week. I just hope he gets to do whatever it is that he wants, and is ‘meant’ to do, in life.

I’ve been helping my wife, Hannah, with a bit of a garden project to replace part of one of the flowerbed with a gravel area for an double swinging egg chair. She had the creative vision and did most of the work, while I just gave occasional words of encouragement. It’s looking great, and is positioned in a real sun trap in the garden.

Next week will be 25 years since Hannah and I got together during our first year at the University of Sheffield, so we may mark that in some way. I’m again planning to head to the Thinking Digital Conference, thanks to a free ticket from a different Hannah (Underwood). Due to my daughter’s cup final I won’t be at Worker Co-op Weekend, which is a shame as I’ve never managed to get to that particular event.