So, I’m into crypto currencies. Rather heavily. I’m perhaps reflecting on what has brought me to where I am today. This can have been unconscious or conscious behaviours and decisions or both. Irrespective, these would have been driven by motives, incentives, disincentives. Behavioural economics. A good framework to reflect on what has brought someone to … Continue reading Why am I now into cryptocurrencies?

These are my current thoughts on a book I’m currently reading about the 2016 UK Brexit referendum – All out War: The Full Story of How Brexit Sank Britain’s Political Class So, this book describes actions without giving value judgements other than those attributed to sources. So from my perspective, I might describe the actions … Continue reading All Out War: The Full Story of How Brexit Sank Britain’s Political Class

The legitimate purpose of a government is to protect you and your property and keep an eye on infrastructure so that we aren’t drowning in floods on the way to our bullshit jobs where we work to buy stuff and pay for services that keep other people in both real and bullshit jobs and pay … Continue reading Is War a Racket?

While I have reservations regarding Moodle which I am going to set out in future blogs, I think this is a marvellous development for those of us who want to either try the open source learning management system software and perhaps develop their skills in using it or simply use it to structure their own […]

This is the second blog in a short series of blogs on the recent popular phenomenon of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The first blog on their development, the backdrop and the history, is here. In this blog I’ll be discussing how MOOCs can differ drastically in terms of their pedagogy and culture. I’ll explain […]

This is my first blog on a topic that has become very much central to my interests in the field of technology enhanced learning, initially from an academic perspective and then from a professional one. Massive Open Online Courses or MOOCs. Anyone with even a passing interest in e-learning should be familiar with the phenomenon […]

After a relatively long break, this is the second part of my blog on creating a social learning network or SLN. This will not be as detailed as the previous as work on the SLN was halted for reasons I’ll discuss later, but as usual this blog provides me with a repository for my research, […]

In order to create differentiation from our competitors and add real value to course offerings, how can we create a branded social learning network that engenders productive learner interaction, self-directed learning, student-generated content, and has buy-in from teachers.

I’ve said before that this blog is called Multiple Tracks as I’d like to write about a number of things. It’s also a repository for my thoughts and I’ve often felt that adding long verbose posts to Facebook is somewhat of a waste due to the fleeting nature of the format. So in this blog, […]

So, in this blog I’m going to discuss the ethical considerations and implementation of learning analytics in a corporate training context. This specifically leads on from the flipped learning project design I’ve discussed previously. The discussion is therefore focused on my particular context, but I think the overarching ideas relating to ethics and implementation can […]

Leading on from my previous blog on flipped learning, here’s a video of a presentation I put together for my department on a flipped learning design and implementation scenario. Comments are welcome.

I’m Gareth Davies. I’m from the south Wales valleys in the UK, but I have been living and working in Bangkok, Thailand for over seven years language instruction and corporate training. This is my blog. This blog will be concerned with me collecting my thoughts, posting up any ideas, work in progress, and anything else I […]

In this blog, I’ll explain how I have become so interested in and enthusiastic about the potential of flipped learning. This is a moderately adapted report I wrote for my current corporate training centre (the PTC) within the British Council in Bangkok. It’s a report on e-learning innovation and it’s split into four sections. In the first […]

So in this blog, I’d like to run through one of the interesting projects I’ve been a part of for my MA course on E-learning innovation with the Open University. This was a project where I’d be working with a geographically dispersed group of people to design a learning artefact on a subject that we […]

Stockholm I got off the ferry at breakfast time and followed some of my fellow passengers to the Stockholm underground where I took a train to Gamla Stan, the old town. I followed the signs to Ridderholmen and found my hotel, The Malardrottinghen Hotel, a renovated ship…..or is it a boat….maybe a yacht….I’m patently not […]

Helsinki to Stockholm Took the high speed Allegro train to Helsinki. The journey takes 3.5 hours and it is a lovely train. I had lasagne from the restaurant car and wondered how much horse meat had found its way into my meal. It was nice anyway. There’s free wifi, a children’s play area, and currency […]

St Petersburg St Petersburg is stunning. From the moment I got off the train at the end of Nevski Prospekt, the main drag that runs a couple of miles up to the Neva river and the Winter Palace that sits on its bank, everywhere you looked there was incredibly beautiful and well-maintained architecture. It naturally […]

Moscow to St Petersburg I’d read two and a half books by the time the train reached Moscow and watched the scenery change from what eventually became the tedium of snow and taiga trees punctuated by dramatic blizzards and colourful wooden houses in impossibly remote villages into the large often jauntily coloured apartment blocks and […]

Part 3 Irkutsk and the Trans-Siberian The train got into Irkutsk early in the morning. Emptying out the fake brand goods mules that spoke animatedly into their mobiles as they schlepped their bundles of fake Diesel jeans along the platform. It was around -30 and I walked out of the station rather bleary-eyed and confused, […]

Part 2 Ulan Bator and the Trans-Mongolian I arrived in Ulan Bator early afternoon on the 21st March having slept pretty well on the train. I found the lilting of the carriages accompanied by the metronome click-clacking of the rails helped me drift off…with sufficient beer. I received a free transfer from the train station […]

So, in March 2013, I found myself with the time, the finances, and the lack of a personal life conducive to taking an extended trip. For a long time I’d fancied taking the by now the pretty well-trodden path of the Trans-Siberian express across Russia. I understood, however, that a lot of that trip would constitute looking […]

Why do we blog?  I think I’d like to explore why we blog. From a learning theory perspective, apparently we blog because reflection is an important part of learning. I have often found myself writing blog-length posts on Facebook and before that I was often very active on web forums. I found that writing these […]

So here it is. Likely not the most original first blog post in the long list of first blog posts, but there we are. And here I am. I’m Gareth Davies. This is my blog. My blog is called Multiple Tracks for a few reasons. First. I like the name. But maybe I like the […]