iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Plus the admin load of booking the rooms and arranging all the sessions!

JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

First movie my brother and I (then aged 9 and 10) went to on our own, without a parent. We fled in terror before the halfway point

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Sorry you had a rough time, but as you say that is not a sensible journey, and I can’t imagine anyone ever having to do it unless they made a serious routing mistake

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

LCY-LGW also only about 70 minutes, albeit with two changes

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

??? Unless something is seriously broken LCY-LHR is a 70 minute journey with only one change (from DLR to Lizzie line), and you’ve probably got a seat the entire way

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

That silly Gerwig: constantly bungling films based on iconic stories and characters

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

My new favourite bluesky people are the Concerned Brits who are very worried that Greta Gerwig – who famously never gets things right – just doesn’t understand the really important bits of the Narnia story

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

makes perfect sense really: by her definition most of the team isn’t English either

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I’m completely untroubled by the notion that I am a naturalised Brit but emphatically not English, whereas my England-born daughter is English, whatever her ethnicity. (Btw if we’d come to England when she was say two years old I’d still consider her English.)

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Totally agree with this and it’s how I personally feel about myself (naturalised Brit) and my child (born in England)

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

The problem with two-hour flights is no one wants to check their luggage

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Just saw an elderly American tip a Heathrow barista a crisp dollar bill

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Rereading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and the pacing of the mahjong chapter is such a comic delight

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Vg point. Students do develop agency in 2dary school, plus other aspects of educational self-formation eg subject matter knowledge. But at uni they have to develop different manifestations of agency under greater educational independence. And that's fine! Part of my job is to support that transition

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

That's a v fair complaint. But I think all systems have weaknesses & we have to decide what compromises we're happy with. Students here are taught to write to test-specific criteria & that is less than ideal. But all systems have flaws eg the US "getting into college" system is way more biased

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Agree, but i'm seeing arguments that Year 1 uni students lack critical reasoning skills because of England's high school testing regime. But I see those same arguments from eg American academics about American students, and of course the assessment system is totally different there

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

I think it’s important to note that academics in countries without high stakes testing also complain about their students‘ critical reasoning skills. (Personally I’ve always been pretty impressed by my students’ criticality, but maybe I’m one of the lucky ones)

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Yes I was so glad she did it. With her permission I share her dissertation with each new crop of young mature students

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Yeah, and if you’d told the 25 year-old (or even 35 year-old) me that I’d end up having an academic career I’d have laughed in your face. I try to impress on my students that they don’t have to get everything right the first time through, but I know they don’t believe me

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Absolutely. A few years ago one of my mid-20s BA students wrote a really nice dissertation on what she referred to as “Young Mature Students“ i.e. students who were living genuinely independent adult lives but were still young enough looking to be mistaken for and treated as the 18-21 UCL norm

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Yes I spent 10 years getting my BA in the US. It was really important that I was able to integrate part-time uni into my independent adult life. If I had been in england under the current norms I might never have graduated

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Ah the textbook point makes lots of sense re changing unis, thanks! I think we should let students progress through their degree at their own pace over a much longer period of time if desired. But I can see how that would need to be at the same uni

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Oh curses I would’ve pre-ordered the American version instead of the UK version had I known this. (I travel back-and-forth between the two countries.) I read that piece on your Substack and loved it

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

This is such a glaring weakness of the system, it drives me crazy

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Just to nitpick a touch: taking a pause and transferring unis both occur pretty frequently in the US system even though the marking is all done by course teachers. (I should know, it took me 10 years to get my BA). Or maybe I am misunderstanding your point here?

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

(2/2) I myself benefitted hugely from the US BA system, which allowed me to change majors umpteen times, drop out and return even more times, then eventually complete my BA at age 27 as a part-time mature student. Sounds like me and your immigrant son had similar trajectories!

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

V int experiences and reflections! Though I've changed my views on centrally-marked assessments, I continue to think that the English system of choosing three A-levels at age 15-16 is foolish, and I think the uni focus on only one subject narrows horizons way too quickly. (1/2)

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Re trusting my colleagues‘ observations & experience: I value those observations & experiences, but colleagues have conflicting views and - like me - various biases, information gaps, etc. I think my colleagues’ claims on this topic have to be tested against research evidence - as do mine!

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Yes, their insights have made me much less anti-centralised marking than I used to be. Eg I used to think the English system was worse than the American system and based in part on my students‘ insights I have now flipped that position

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Also as a qualitative methodologist, I think it’s important that we neither belittle people’s perceptions nor mistake those perceptions for some form of objective truth. This is as true for academics as anyone

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

In my year 1 module we actually devote a couple of lectures to letting students compare different national assessment systems – it’s lots of fun and the students provide some great insights

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

I say perceived because people are often expressing their perceptions. I’m not trying to be dismissive, certainly no more than any colleagues who think that my view must be wrong if it conflicts with theirs. I’m v happy to discuss the relative strengths and weaknesses of various assessment systems

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

I suspect it’s more of a proximity issue. Academics see the (perceived) problems with the system they are closest to and assume more distant systems must have fewer problems

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

@stephenkb.bsky.social American university applications include so much focus on students‘ extracurricular activities precisely because the American assessment system does such a bad job of differentiating students‘ academic attainment

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

And yeh I'm probably pretty lucky re the uni I work at and the students we get. But I'm not in love with sweeping doom & gloom claims about how damaged incoming students are by England's supposedly terrible education system. These statements don't reflect my own experience as a teacher and parent

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

I don't want to argue with some guy on bluesky, but some guy on bluesky is arguing that "practically all university year 1 is spent trying to undo... damage done by the current [secondary school assessment] system". And I just want to say that this is not my experience. My Y1 students tend to be fab

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

A particularly tedious aspect of AI is how it has convinced MA dissertation students to claim that they have identified a research gap and are going to fill it. No you haven't and no you aren't. You're an MA student who's been reading about this topic for 4 months -- you hardly know anything yet

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Polish background to Iga’s post-Toronto victory speech www.tennisforum.com/threads/the-...

tennisforum.com

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Wow! I had no idea this was considered acceptable anywhere within English academia

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Haha i’ve known several people who genuinely believe that children get their accents from their parents rather than their peers

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Yes but I also think that if you were a teacher who only had a masters degree the students would say “but you’re our teacher, we have to call you professor“. I think it ultimately all boils down to “academic” = “professor”. (The guy with the MA was very happy to be called Professor!)

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

This (a) sounds insane and (b) doesn’t match my experience of working with Cambridge academics. In my experience, Cambridge has assistant professors (= lecturers), associate professors (= senior lecturers) and full professors

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

It might be more accurate to say that students in the US will call someone with an academic role professor, whether that be a postdoc or a teacher. I had a teacher who only had a Masters degree and we called him Professor

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Look I try to be sympathetic to Brits coping with the heat, but they’ve just cancelled the local ferry service here (Northwest Devon) because of “extreme heat“. Today’s high here = 25°. And that’s on land, on the water it’s maybe 20-21°?

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Here’s mine: England’s a small country so every region is pretty much the same as every other

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

My particular bugbear. Here in Lewisham people in £1 million homes are desperate to block £500k “luxury flats”

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JD Carpentieri @jdcarpentieri.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

lady i'm from a city that averages 75-90 days of 30°+ heat per year, trust me when i say fans are your friend

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