• Hiking Fraser Island, Queensland in Winter

    Hiking Fraser Island, Queensland in Winter

    Fraser Island is a considerably sized sand Island off the coast of Queensland, Australia.  Some say it is the biggest sand island in the world (and some find meaning and significance in hierarchising anything and everything). I set off for my six-day, 90 Kms, hiking adventure on Fraser Island from mid-winter Melbourne.  Queensland is warm…

  • Driving from Melbourne to Uluru

    Driving from Melbourne to Uluru

    Uluru is a massive rock in Central Australia. Some say it is the biggest rock in the world; some say many things. I was sceptical about seeing Uluru at first as it reeked of instrumental tourism, a place defined by the outcome rather than the journey. So, I started the unaligned journey in Fitz-Roy (the…

  • Driving from Melbourne (Fitzroy) to Uluru (Ayres Rock)

    Driving from Melbourne (Fitzroy) to Uluru (Ayres Rock)

    Over the Christmas break, I plan to drive the immortal distance from Fitzroy in Melbourne to Uluru, Central Australia. I have never driven this far in Australia before, and luckily I will be with my dapper co-pilot, Sebastian from Cuenca in Ecuador (who I met during that other monumental road trip). Thankfully we will be…

  • Would you like to chat? The Ethics of AI in Higher Education

    Would you like to chat? The Ethics of AI in Higher Education

    I recently led a session at the eResearch Australasia conference on the ethics of AI in higher education. It is a big topic to handle, and I’m pretty new to this stuff, but the conversation went pretty well, and the awareness of both AI and ethics is high in this community. The ethical challenges posed…

  • Is there a beyond in Constructive Alignment?

    Is there a beyond in Constructive Alignment?

    Next week at the ASCILITE conference, I will be conducting a debate about the pros and cons of ‘Constructive Alignment’ in higher education, especially as it relates to digital learning tools. Debates are a really good pedagogy in terms of outlining the pros and cons of a topic and building the soft and hard skills…

  • Black Cat Fitzroy

    Black Cat Fitzroy

    I’ve been visiting the Black Cat Fitzroy for as long as I can remember. The first time I came to this bohemian dive was sometime around 1988. It has managed to reinvent and reinvigorate itself, perhaps a little more than I have. It was one of the original cafes in the district that helped build…