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Welcome to my personal website which I created for my own pleasure. It is a small attempt to display the various aspects of my portfolio and background, allowing me a wider diversity than current social media allows.

Please be aware that all reaction areas will be moderated. Behave as you would in my living room meeting me face to face, and I will too.

Blog

About me

TL;DR

I work in digital innovation of education, at Leiden University’s Leiden Learning & Innovation Centre, where I specialize in online communities, life long learning and understanding how to better use digital platforms. I am fascinated by connecting people through technology, and understanding the behaviour in the digital space. There are things you can and must do to control the trolls & haters, but online communities remain great opportunities for interaction and collaborative projects.  I have a background in History, Management and Online Roleplaying with an activist track record on education quality and sustainability issues. Of course you could have read that on my team bio.

Want to know more? A bit too much for one page, so check out

Portfolio

On this page I will attempt to link to work that I helped to create, either in most cases as part of a team, or solely by my own efforts. I have attempted some categorization and may change my mind on that later.

Presentations

My first presentations date back to 2014, when I did some internal presentations, as well as a small paper and a teacher handbook, around the first results of MOOCs. I also attended a Coursera Conference panel on how to deal with negativity in courses in London in that year. I presented at several annual Coursera Conferences after that until that went out of style (and their conferences became solely marketing oriented), and was also involved in the programme committe of the LWMOOCs for the first couple of years. I have also presented at several communication seminars. Those have lost most of their usefulness, but if you are curious contact me and I can provide them. Below some of my more recent presentations and productions for which there is a paper trail or media recording.

Video & Podcasting

These productions were all made in collaboration with the mediateam of Centre for Innovation and I credit them with the quality of the production.

  • A decade of making MOOCs: relaunch of the Terrorism MOOC – a livestreamed talkshow, in which I took the role of producer, with my fantastic media team covering the tech bits and the director’s role. About making MOOCs for the last decade, and how it connects to Leiden University (digital) strategy. (April 2022)
  • Experiencing Education in 2020 – a documentary that I co-directed on how Leiden University survived Education in 2020, with some focus on the support staff. (Jan 2021)
  • A Very Mindful Podcast: Green Spaces.
  • Five Stage Model – part of the training of moderator volunteers, explaining Gilly Salmons’ 5 stage module, and the role of the moderator.
  • Trolls & Haters – part of the training of moderator volunteers, explaining the fenomena.
  • Why is Emoderation Important? – part of the training of moderator volunteers, the basic reasons for moderation
  • The Mindful Garden – what is possible to increase biodiversity at Leiden University? The green musketeers of Centre for Innovation made this garden possible.
  • Online Study Tips – a summary of what was once the academic toolkit, in use by the Leiden MOOCs. (Script and concept by myself, voice over the wonderful Cameron Hope).

MOOCs and other digital workshops

Writing

Games & Communities

Some of the games and game resource sites I worked on are no longer live, so I provide no link to them, but you can contact me if they are of interest to you. I do not list the games that I was not a founding member of.

  • We did an exciting first proto type of a forcasting game using roleplaying techniques in winter 2022. Our first experiment was on the topic of the metaverse in education. A follow up expected.
  • Teaching@Science, peer to peer teaching community of the faculty Science, find us using the code l15e4ie (founded March 2021)
  • Leiden Sustainability Network (founded Sept 2020)- delivered support for LUGO and the central sustainability office, exclusive for Leiden staff on MS Teams, code ls7a021
  • Age of Intrigue – Play by Post forum roleplaying game, using the setting of the English Restoration’s Court (2006-2018, aprox 20 players)
  • Tazlure – Play byPost forum roleplaying game in homebrew fantasy game setting ( 2001 -2009, aprox 200-400 players)
  • Amethyst Alliance IRPG, RPG resource site including the ezine Amethyst Circle (1998-2002)

House Rules

I intend to allow comments/reactions on my website, in particular at the blog. That requires some basic rules (as is my expertise).

TL;DR

It is simple really: behave as you would in my living room meeting me face to face, and I will too. I am generally speaking a very kind and welcoming host. This website exists for my personal pleasure, so try to keep it fun and light with the occasional political engagement where warranted.

The Extended Version

As there are always rules lawyers in any game, let me expand a little bit on my philosopy on community guidelines or house rules:

  1. The purpose of this website is to have a collection of my personal and work related portfolio. It is about me, and I am never wrong on me. However, if you wish to express your concern or opposition you can contact me at my office.
  2. You can say anything you want, but if you are not respectful, discriminate or otherwise make a nuisance of yourselves, I will remove the reaction, and if there is a repeat offence I will ban you before you can blink your eyes. That said, I welcome those that engage me on topics I care about.
  3. This is not a platform to promote your product. It is not okay to use my resources to increase your revenue or audience. That includes if you circumvent spam filters by appearing to be a genuine person with authentic behaviour. AI may not catch you, but I will.
  4. I own the copyrights of everything on this website. My opinions are my own too, and not those of my employer. If you wish to read my employer endorsed opinions and analyses, we have a very nice website.
  5. I can haz privacy policy as per GDPR.