About this blog
I'm Miriam, a digital learning specialist and writer based in Melbourne, Australia. I’m currently dividing my time between a PhD research project, teaching, learning design projects, and ranting about equity, ethics and experience on the internet.
What I write about
Most of what I write here centres on learning (both within and beyond educational institutions) in postdigital conditions.
The “postdigital” is a way of acknowledging that, in the world we live in now, digital technologies are not separable from other aspects of human experience. We’re always either connected or awaiting connection, and the presence — even in absence — of digital technologies has profound and ongoing implications for social and political life.
Here’s something I wrote as I was trying to make sense of this idea of the postdigital:
Beyond theorising, I am interested in how we experience humanness in a postdigital world. This is an article I wrote to reflect on the rising use of generative AI chatbots as therapists and personal companions:
I also write regularly on learning and educational design. I’m particularly interested in adult education, lifelong learning and the role of educational institutions. This one is currently the most frequently-read article on this site:
If you share some of these interests, I’d love to hear from you. Connect with me on LinkedIn, subscribe to this newsletter, share your own work!
Why this blog?
In 2024 I decided to make good on the weird compulsion I had to leave my full time job and spend a few years researching the value of “lifelong learning” for learners themselves.
They say doctoral study is a lonely business, so I'm doing everything I can to build a community of like-minded education nerds. I created this site to practise my thinking and my writing, but also in the hope it might reach others with shared interests in online adult education.
My posts are philosophical and sociological. I try to keep them short — I think of them as sketches and studies for larger pieces as I build the theoretical foundations of my research and make sense of the cluttered ideas floating around.
