Chris Thomson
banner
cbthomson.bsky.social
Chris Thomson
@cbthomson.bsky.social
Learning - technology - music - storytelling - creativity, all that good stuff...
"Life Can Only Be Understood Backwards, But It Must Be Lived Forwards" Kierkegaard (probably)
Reposted by Chris Thomson
👀ICYMI: "It matters less that Grokipedia succeeds than whether it helps to delegitimise Wikipedia."

@gildersleve.uk #Grok #Wikipedia #Knowledge
Grokipedia falls flat, but AI is already rewriting Wikipedia’s future - Impact of Social Sciences
Launched as a competitor to Wikipedia, Grokipedia is one of the first LLM based encyclopaedias, but how does it compare to the last best place on the internet?
blogs.lse.ac.uk
November 24, 2025 at 4:42 PM
Reposted by Chris Thomson
Heroes are everywhere
November 27, 2025 at 1:40 AM
"County celebrates arrival in post of new Archdeacon of Blackburn". No one was in though, so she got left behind the bins.
November 25, 2025 at 5:24 PM
Stumbled across this local metal band recently. I know what they they were going for but maybe they do have an irrational fear of a small town in Greater Manchester.
November 25, 2025 at 9:36 AM
Reposted by Chris Thomson
Aye
November 21, 2025 at 11:16 PM
Reposted by Chris Thomson
Proposals for a UN online university for the poorest countries in the world ... Tony Bates provides some initial details: www.tonybates.ca/2025/11/10/a...
A United Nations online university for the poorest countries in the world: dream or reality? | Tony Bates
www.tonybates.ca
November 20, 2025 at 4:45 AM
Reposted by Chris Thomson
Frosty the Snowman
Spawn of the Elder Gods
He’s got three eyes and he’ll hunt you down
With his seagull-headed dogs
This mural has gone up in Kingston, ostensibly for Christmas but AI has ensured it's actually to celebrate the return of our dark lord Cthulhu
November 18, 2025 at 3:54 PM
New post: Questioning the inevitability of better tech. inspiringlearning.jiscinvolve.org/wp/2025/11/q... Bringing a few things together that challenge the assumption that in tech, "things can only get better".
Questioning the inevitability of better tech - Inspiring learning
Chris reflects on why we should challenge the assumption that technology is always on an inevitable upward path to improvement.
inspiringlearning.jiscinvolve.org
November 18, 2025 at 3:07 PM
Looks like there are CloudFlare issues worldwide at the moment. Affecting availability of certain websites. www.cloudflarestatus.com
Subscribe to updates for Cloudflare Global Network experiencing issues via email and/or text message. You'll receive email notifications when incidents are updated, and text message notifications whenever Cloudflare creates or resolves an incident.
www.cloudflarestatus.com
November 18, 2025 at 12:06 PM
Reposted by Chris Thomson
How delightfully quaint some of these old Devon village names are, their etymologies lost in the mists of time.
November 17, 2025 at 3:24 PM
What perfect album came out the year you turned 16?
November 17, 2025 at 11:14 AM
@cal-innes.bsky.social @scotthibberson.bsky.social www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... I imagine doing this at a community level with larger data centres might be more efficient but hey, hats off. I like the idea of data centres actually contributing to the communities that host them.
'I heat my Essex home with a data centre in the shed'
www.bbc.co.uk
November 16, 2025 at 7:48 AM
Reposted by Chris Thomson
At the
November 14, 2025 at 7:39 AM
Reposted by Chris Thomson
I have been dreaming of this day for over five years. Proctorio’s lawsuit against me is forever over. I’ve won my life back!

linkletter.org/update-33-th...
Update #33: The lawsuit is over! | Stand Against Proctorio's SLAPP!
linkletter.org
November 13, 2025 at 11:49 PM
Our team's roundup of interstingness from the last month is out now for your reading pleasure. One for your Friday coffee break. inspiringlearning.jiscinvolve.org/wp/2025/11/d...
Digital Practice Round Up - October 25 - Inspiring learning
A roundup of what the Jisc Digital Practice team have been doing & discovering this month. October's edition is edited by Chris & Cat.
inspiringlearning.jiscinvolve.org
November 6, 2025 at 4:12 PM
Reposted by Chris Thomson
this is what happens when everything is in the cloud
October 20, 2025 at 9:17 AM
Reposted by Chris Thomson
Edinburgh castle failing to render, likely thanks to the AWS outage
October 20, 2025 at 8:35 AM
Reposted by Chris Thomson
Hopefully see you at #ALTC25 in Glasgow on Friday. Do drop-in to my workshop with University of Exeter's Steph Comley 'From Dreams to Reality: piloting digital learning tools'. We beginning to build digital learning tool piloting framework and need your help :-) altc.alt.ac.uk/blog/2025/10...
Piloting learning technologies: from dreams to reality
Piloting. Proof of concept. “Let’s use this new tool.” The way learning technologies are introduced to colleges and universities varies. Sometimes pilots are undertaken, other times a learning tool…
altc.alt.ac.uk
October 20, 2025 at 11:17 AM
Reposted by Chris Thomson
I may or may not walk five hundred miles
And I may or may not walk five hundred more
Just to be the man who may or may not have walked
a thousand miles to fall or not fall down at your door

- The Disclaimers
February 5, 2025 at 3:47 PM
Forgive me trying to crowdsource some IT support. The dorts in Hull is getting this on her Lenovo Ideapad. Refusing to connect to any available Wi-Fi. No one else on the network is having a problem. Can’t get into Windows. Wi-fi card dead?
October 12, 2025 at 11:23 AM
Reposted by Chris Thomson
Jisc, funded by Medr has been investigating the use of teaching & learning tools across Wales’ FE and Skills Sector. We have created some top tips that we will share in the next few weeks. Link in comments...

Top tip 1: Using Design tools
#DigiLearnTipsCymru
@littlebootevans.bsky.social
October 10, 2025 at 4:03 PM
Reposted by Chris Thomson
Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.
October 8, 2025 at 10:29 AM
New post - Anthology responds to points raised about their Chapter 11 protection filing from last week.

If your university or college uses Blackboard, Ally, Illuminate or other Anthology products, this is important info.

inspiringlearning.jiscinvolve.org/wp/2025/10/b...
Blackboard update - response from Anthology - Inspiring learning
Martyn Rollason, Anthology Director of Customer Services EMEA responds to questions & points raised about their bankruptcy protection filing.
inspiringlearning.jiscinvolve.org
October 8, 2025 at 8:11 AM
Reading this reminded me about Roger Penrose’s assertion that consciousness isn’t a computation. I know he wasn’t really talking about this but I still want it on a laptop sticker.
October 8, 2025 at 7:27 AM