Module 2; Creating the structure!

This morning I had an incredibly helpful 1:1 tutorial with Adesola. We discussed my inquiry topic idea, ethics and structuring my time for module 3. 

I had been worrying that I couldn't find any literature contradicting my thoughts of how a ballet dancer's voice is silenced during ballet training. Adesola corrected me in thinking that there wasn't anything out there - I just haven't found the right way to search for it yet. But this could take years, and this course and inquiry isn't about trying to prove a point. It is about trying to fill in the gaps. I have been formally trained as a technical dancer, not as a teacher. Therefore this inquiry for me is to try to fill some of gaps in my knowledge to help further my practice in teaching. 

So instead of worrying about finding literature that goes against my opinions of the subject, I am instead going to continue to focus on the different teaching techniques and explore the literature around them - including the outcomes that other scholars have discovered. 

In my last post I discussed my new 'sharing rule' in class. Adesola pointed out to me that I don't actually know for sure yet how this will effect the class as right now I still haven't done enough research into the results of using this peer review technique. Therefore in a way I am experimenting on the class (which sounds utterly awful and is far from my intention of bringing the class together in a focused, positive and uplifting environment.) But this has made me aware that I do need to research further into different teaching techniques and the outcome effects that they have on the students (before I introduce them to my classroom). 

This brings me on to deciding to interview teachers and their own opinions on the best ways to conduct a class in order to bring the best out of their students. Learning is a very individual thing and everyone learns differently. But to find a way that makes everyone feel included in a classroom situation would be an ultimate aim now for me. And to do this I need 

Module 2 is about creating a structure (or a road to travel down) for module 3. During module 3 we may stray away as we uncover new ideas, but the structure will be there to pull us back to the main road so that we can continue to travel towards the aim we set out with. So my next plan is to start to structure out my time - first for the rest of this module and then for module 3, so that I have more of a plan to go forward with. 

So onward with planning the rest of this module, writing my first draft of my proposal and completing the MORE form.

My ‘sharing rule’

For my inquiry, an idea I have been looking into is ballet pedagogy and how it effects a dancer’s personal identity; particularly focussing on how it silences a dancer’s voice. Speaking to a friend last night who I went to school with, without any prompting from me, she bought up how she now struggles in ‘regular’ jobs; if she doesn’t have an authority figure instructing her on what to do, she feels at a loss for what she should be doing. She is working in a primary school as a teacher’s assistant and has been struggling to keep herself busy when not instructed. She also feels nervous and shy whenever a person with higher authority does talk to her, as if she doesn’t feel worthy or appropriate to speak up her ideas. She puts this down to her upbringing in ballet. 

In the ballet studio we are instructed the whole time and we are taught to obey our teachers without hesitation. Not to say that this isn’t always a bad thing, as we have grown up with respect, manners and some would say the best hardworking mentalities and drive for perfection in whatever we set ourselves to achieve. However do we now struggle to speak up from being taught as forever inferior to the person with authority in the room? At vocational ballet schools you had to abide by the rules of the studio, or risk being assessed out therefore ending or at very least stunting your career pursuit. Don’t get me wrong, I adored every second of my ballet training, however since entering the working world, I have at times struggled to network myself or speak up to get myself noticed as it just hasn’t ever been a part of my upbringing. 

So, I have been looking at how I can make a change in the studio for my students that I teach. This half term I have begun to enforce a new ‘sharing’ rule. I separate the class into groups and then as one group dances, the other sits with me to watch and then we share with each other what was good and where they could improve. If a student, for example, recommends that another’s pirouette is falling to one side during their turn, we discuss how they can correct this and what they can look out for in themselves in the future. I have noticed the classroom become much more lively and concentrated. They feel more involved and I have noticed physical improvements in all as well as in their confidence when they dance for each other. I recommend other teachers give this ‘sharing rule’ a go ...and if you do, please let me know the outcome and what you notice in your students! 

Also if anyone has had similar experiences or indeed the complete opposite to myself and my friend at vocational ballet schools, please comment below so that we can discuss! Any ideas for further research, teaching tips etc are greatly appreciated. 

Transmission, transactional and transformative learning

One of my initial ideas for my inquiry and one that plays on my mind daily is the silencing of a ballet dancer’s voice during training and how this effects us as professionals and human beings. Since graduating I have experienced working in professional ballet companies as well as in the fitness industry and during this time I have discovered how much I have grown to shy away from speaking up. During my training as a ballet dancer I was always taught to only speak when absolutely necessary and even then I would, I’d often be shot down for speaking up. Essentially I have grown up with the understanding that I must be told what to do and never question this. And now this has affected me going into my adult life, I have had to work hard to push past these boundaries of silence in order to put myself out there so that I can forward my career. For it is the 21st century, and my voice should never feel the need to be silenced.

Maybe I am the only one that feels this way, or maybe others are experiencing the same as me, but this is something I would like to find out. And then looking ahead to my career, work out how I can push past these boundaries and also how I can make a change in the studio for my students that I teach.

During my research into this idea I have been looking into teaching theories, 3 of which stand out;
- Transmission
- Transactional
- Transformative
I believe I experienced predominantly transmissional teaching (where knowledge is transmitted directly from teacher to student in a predetermined order). Transactional teaching was also a necessity where we would be encouraged to draw on our own past knowledge with current experiences in order to further our learning. But my intrigue is whether I can start to incorporate some more transformative teaching methods and whether or not this will have positive affects on the student and the ballet industry.

Transformative teaching was developed by Jack Mezirow. It provides opportunity for critical thinking and acting on new perspectives. Students are encouraged to question what they see as correct in order to become more open minded and break down barriers which may be holding them back from fully developing their capabilities and talents.

But could this work in the ballet studio? Ballet technique is essentially quite black and white, but could this help with how individuals can personally achieve the technique in their own way? And more than that, could it help us retain our individuality and allow us to be confident and speak up to promote ourselves and our beliefs?

References
https://www.learning-theories.com/transformative-learning-theory-mezirow.html 24/10/18;

Mezirow, J. (2009). Transformative learning theory. In J. Mezirow, and E. W. Taylor (Eds), Transformative Learning in Practise: Insights from Community.

Christie, M., Carey, M., Robertson, A., & Grainger, P. (2015). Putting transformative learning theory into practice. Australian Journal of Adult Learning, 55(1), 10-30

Howie, P. & Bagnall, R. (2013). A beautiful metaphor: Transformative learning theory. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 32(6), 816-836

Johnson, A. (2015). Three views of teaching: transmission, transaction and transformation. [Blog] Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/three-views-teaching-transmission-transaction-andrew-johnson [Accessed 24 Oct. 2018].

An unanticipated lesson learnt

I haven’t had a chance to blog in a while and as much as I would like to say that this is because of my packed schedule it is unfortunately because I have suffered a technical disaster .... all my work somehow decided to delete itself (I’m not the most technical person, but for the life of me and all the people who I have gone to for help, we can not recover the work or figure out why it has disappeared!) 

So after a pretty major freak out, I have set about trying to manually recover everything that I had already done. Thankfully I hadn’t deleted my search history, so I have been able to rediscover the literature which had taken my interest. (Although having to essentially start from scratch again has been a pretty big set back and I am going to have to push to catch up again.) 

I have always backed up my work, but now I am taking further care to back up and then back up again (and then again...) I have updated all my storage plans and expanded on these where needed. I am now backing up my work to several different places as well as always remembering to email my work to myself after every session. In a way I am happy that this happened to me now closer to the beginning of the module as opposed to the end and I have certainly learnt a lesson from it which I desperately needed to share with everyone. 

My message is this guys - back up your work!! 

Questioning questions/exploring the landscape

I am writing this post to clarify for myself what we discussed on Thursday in our Module 2 Skype session and also to see if it can spark anymore discussion amoung my peers. I had been eager to discuss some ideas and questions that I had been thinking about over our summer break for my inquiry and have started to zero in on a few and this is where my thought process is at the moment...

With help from Helen, Laura, Naomi, Nikita and Amber, I was able to delve further into 1 idea in particular - the silencing of a ballet dancer's voice during training. Earlier this year during a contemporary contract I realised how shy I have become in the studio in terms of voicing my opinion or questioning how my body can achieve certain movements or even just speaking up within discussion. This I think stems from my training. As ballet dancers we are taught to only do as we are told and to never talk back. Essentially the studio must be silent and the teacher is 100% in control. This is how I have been bought up, having started professionally training at 13 and I feel there are consequences (admittedly both good and bad) that have come out of being taught in this environment. Through discussion we started to question this idea further and the different angles I could take to explore this pedagogy focus. 

After the call I wrote down all of the questions that had arisen during our discussion. Here are some of my main areas of interest at the moment;

-Have other vocational students experienced this feeling of being silenced and unable to truly voice their emotions? 
-How does it effect us as dancers and people?
-How does it affect the work environment?
-Is this something that needs to be changed in ballet pedagogy?
-How can I going forward into my career, make a change to the way I teach and conduct a class in order to avoid my students having this experience? Will this be a good thing for them? Are there definite elements that shouldn’t be changed?
-Do other industries experience the same thing?
-Will this be a universal welcomed change? 
-Does it have an affect on mental health?

These are just some of the questions that I discovered during the session on Thursday and going forward I plan to explore further into all these areas through various literature resources. 

If anyone does have any opinions or more questions for me based on the idea of 'Does ballet pedagogy silence a dancer's inner voice' then please feel free to comment so that we can discuss further! 

1st Blog of Module 2 - My Party Guest list...

On Thursday (27th September) I attended our first Module 2 Skype session... And I couldn't be happier that I made it to this one! My initial read of the module 2 handbook had left me overwhelmed by the tasks ahead but after discussing with my peers (and discovering that they all seemed to be in a similar situation to me) I feel reassured that my thoughts had in fact been going in the right direction!... Here are some of the insights and tips that I gained from our discussion:

The Literature Review
Before starting this, you need to zero in on your focus. At the moment this will be quite broad (and don't be afraid that it is). For example, I have recently undertaken a few more teaching jobs, so I have been wandering if basing my inquiry on ballet pedagogy could aid my practice best. Obviously this is a huge subject, with many different options for me to explore (such as my teaching techniques/focusing in on specific ballet techniques/student welfare etc.) So I have a focus to start me off... 

Now the literature comes into play. Using the literature (and that could be found from many resources such as theatre, books, videos, articles, online, within your own practice, in day to day teaching) you can start to explore your currently broad subject area. As you explore, certain articles and areas may start to jump out at you and it is at this point that the search is starting to narrow down to a smaller question (and not one that is aiming to 'change the world').

As you search, start to compile a 'guest list'. Imagine you are planning a party, and question yourself this - who are the most important people who have to be there? Who absolutely have to be there or the party can not go ahead? These people should go top of the list. This is how you should look at the literature. Which is the most important to me? This is your starting point. 

The point of the literature is to offer you a landscape/map. Explore the landscape from all angles until you start to find that one area that interests you most of all. And of course, don't forget to compile your guest list (bibliography) as you go! (*NOTE TO SELF!*)   

I hope this has helped anyone who didn't make it to the Skype session. I'm looking forward to discussing the outcome of everyone's guest lists soon! 

Bank Holiday Skype session

I finally managed to make it to another skype session, this time only with fellow module 1’s. We were discussing all details of essay writing and I have come away with a few more useful tips as we near the end of this first module!...

Uses of the appendix
I haven’t yet started to officially install an appendix into my essay, but as I have been writing (and writing and writing) I have been setting information and points aside which I had felt were important but not entirely necessary to the core work. Currently the end of my essay is filled with random paragraphs of information which I am undecided on whether or not to use. Adesola’s advice to me was to write the essay as if there wasn’t going to be an appendix at all - the core material should still read perfectly, without the reader necessarily having to skip to the appendix to discover your whole point. Essentially, think of the essay as a complete story, with the appendix there for the reader to chose to go to if they desire to learn a little more. It is an option for the reader, not a necessity. 

Only 1000 words!... How can I condense my word count?...  
Having learnt and discovered so much during this module, on of my biggest challenges is keeping my word count down. And I have been struggling to do this! So I asked for some advice and Adesola had some very helpful tips for us:

• Are you being apologetic? For example, instead of; “I don’t think I am fully optimising my uses of Web 2.0 and this is something which I would like to work on” you could say “I am working to optimise my use of Web 2.0.” 
• Be punchy and confident - as you read the essay your discussion should be to-the-point.
• Try not to repeat ideas - repeating ideas, even if worded differently is a massive waste of words!
• Change the order of your essay - rearrange so that all your thoughts on one particular subject are all in one section. This way you will be able to see if you have repeated yourself and will be able to pull out the most important information which you wish to use. 
• After 4 saves, save your file under a new name, that way you can keep reflecting back on old versions and decide which order you like best. 
• If you are stuck in a loop - start a fresh!

Hope this helps anyone who couldn’t make it to the skype session but is still struggling to complete their essay. I know that my essay is about to go through some serious alterations!...

Finally I will just remind myself and everyone else of this - through every stage of writing this essay, keep asking yourself the question; “What has this got to do with my practice?” If we stick to this, hopefully we will all stay on track! 

9 days; 9 reflections

"Its usefulness can be in proportion to the extent to which it is your own. It is an extention of yourself, not something outside of you. In it you can and should say what you feel. It is important to be yourself; that what you write is important to you, not just what other people say is important." (Boud, 1985: 54-55)

For the past 9 days I have set myself the challenge to write in my reflective journal in 9 different ways; 

1. Description
2. Initial reflection (stream of thought)
3. List
4. Evaluation
5. What if?
6. Another view
7. Graphs/charts/diagrams
8. Voice memo (and write up at the end of the day)
9. Mood reflection (through use of colour) 

I am very used to writing a reflective journal as it is something I started incorporating into my practice when I was at school. However it has been an interesting challenge to write and reflect in various different ways. I am usually very descriptive when I write, so the first day came as no surprise as very easy. I found day 2 ('initial reflection') a very useful change - it allowed me to just pour out my thoughts onto the page, with no regard to grammar or punctuation. This stream of thought was great in just releasing and allowing all my thoughts/feelings from the day (be that negative or positive) rush out which left me with a feeling of relief and an ease from tensions. I will definitely use this technique again in my reflective practice. 

Another technique I enjoyed was 'What if?' from day 5. I didn't have any idea what I would write or how this would turn out as I began writing that day, but the outcome actually left me feeling very positive. I wrote about how I day-dream a lot..what if I could be training somewhere else? What if I had done something differently at an earlier point in my career? What if I had spoken to a certain person? What if I hadn't had that injury? (etc.) And I began writing up a dream scenario for myself. But then I reflected on my actual experience and it left me realising that I needed to go through what I have, in order to have had my achievements. All in all, 'What if' left me feeling very positive and motivated to keep pushing in my practice. Next time I think I will use the technique a little less literally and see where it takes me... 

My least favourite techniques were 'list', 'evaluation', 'another view' and (although great to look at) 'mood reflection'. Non of these left me feeling particularly inspired. If anything, I actually felt more restricted. In my opinion, there shouldn't be any limits during reflection. 

To my surprise, 'voice memo' on day 8 was actually my favourite. Starting out, it felt very strange to be talking my thoughts out loud to myself, but I quickly left these feelings behind and became indulged in my reflection. To speak my thoughts and then listen back gave me another level of reflection. I could reflect further on initial thoughts and I actually found points of self correction to take with me into my practice, that I will not forget. In his article Reflection: turning experience into learning, Boud discusses the positives of reflecting out loud to others and allowing yourself to fully indulge in the experience; "However much the process may start by feeling stilted and artificial the effect is to provide a valuable contradiction to the feeling, 'My thinking isn't worth listening to.'" (p.88)

Reference

Boud, David., Keogh, Rosemary., Walker, David., (1985) Reflection: turning experience into learning. Kogan Page, London

2c - Reflective Theory task

After studying reader 2, I have taken a lot of time to research further into the use of reflection within my profession. I have found many interesting articles studying the uses of reflection in ballet - my current leading favourite “Reflective Practice in the ballet class: Bringing Progressive Pedagogy to the Classical Tradition” by Jessica Zeller (2017). Zeller goes into great depth about the strict training that ballet students are put through, describing the industry as struggling to “transcend its authoritarian pedagogic history” (Zeller, 2017). She is urging the ballet training to endorse more use of reflection within it’s training. Zeller sights Paulo Freire’s (1970) “in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor”, pointing out the floors in the education, particularly the lack of focus on reflection and self awareness. Within her article she delves deeply into the current ballet training techniques and discusses how the industry educates “the teacher as beyond reproach, students’ knowledge and experience are overlooked as essential elements in their learning.” (Zeller, 2017) I’m sure others in my industry would recognise a lot of the issues which Zeller raises, and it has made me reflect a lot about how we can rectify this for future educators...

One key tool which I often use for my own reflection is through video-based learning. Filming myself rehearsing/performing and then being able to look back and self-correct has greatly helped me in the past. This often draws my attention to corrections that I may have been given by others, allowing me to see from the outside, and reflect on how I can endorse the correction in to my training next time. I also can create an opinion on my own individual way of moving, leading to finding my personal artistic signature style. This tool focuses on the use of Schön’s ‘reflection-on-action’ concept and also Kolb’s ‘reflective observation’ entry to the learning cycle, along with building on my use of Dewey’s ‘reflective thought’, leading to my “continual reorganisation, reconstruction and transformation of experience” (Dewey, 1916).

During my research I started to wonder if there was a point when maybe reflecting could potentially take a more negative turn on our training? I am often guilty of over-thinking and I wondered if this could be an issue if my reflective practice isn’t handled the correct way. Dr Alice Boyes describes it as rumination; “A little self-reflection is a good thing but ruminating - brooding too much on an event in the past - is the biggest predictor of common mental health problems, according to a 2013 study.” (Boyes, 2015). So although reflection should be a key part of training and is an integral part of our everyday professional lives, we need to be able to recognise when to stop. “For anxiety-prone people, rumination often takes the form of self-criticism.” (Boyes, 2015) My aim is to introduce more reflective thought into my practice, keeping a positive outlook on it’s use and to not allow it to become a source of any anxiety when I dance. But are there more techniques that should be taught in order to not allow our reflective thought become ruminative?

Looking more closely at Kolb’s learning cycle, I reflected on my own use and development in order to identify where my entry into the cycle is. Vince Russ (1998) sights “Kolb (1984) maintains that "learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience" (p. 26).” When I was younger, I definitely learnt best through abstract conceptualisation - when learning new styles or steps, my teacher would always refer the step to a ballet technique/terminology in some way, which would help me to connect and understand the new movement. Now I am more of an advocate in the use of active experimentation. I like to play around with a movement until it fits to my body. Maybe this has come from more trust in myself and my abilities? 

From this task I have learnt that I shall be using reflective thinking, not only in my day to day practice, but also to help with my class teaching. I plan to start to actively make a difference to the way the ballet industry educates and start to include more self reflection within the classroom, in order to bring the ballet training out of it’s old school, traditional ways and into our modern actively thinking and rapidly growing modern day. Hopefully this will install more confidence in ballet students to stand out from the crowd and be proud to show their personalities. 

References

Boyes, Alice (2015). Make anxiety work for you: How to use ‘overthinking to your advantage, Telegraph London. 

Dewey, John (1916) Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education, facsimile of edition 2010, Charleston: Nebu

Vince, R. (1998). Behind and Beyond Kolb's Learning Cycle. Journal of Management Education, 22(3), pp.304-319.

Zeller, J. (2017). Reflective Practice in the Ballet Class: Bringing Progressive Pedagogy to the Classical Tradition. Journal of Dance Education, 17(3), pp.99-105.

Task 1b: Professional communication technologies

So I haven't quite mastered a short and concise blog post but here goes!..

The term Web 2.0 is a new one for me and at first (as with everything new) it seemed like quite an alien and daunting term. Web 2.0 is a platform in technology which gives us the opportunity to learn, share and contribute in discussion. Web 1.0, is a one way form of communication (the creator gives you information which you just consume). TV, newspapers and magazines are all examples of content being shared through Web 1.0. Web 2.0 introduces the next step; where us as the reader/consumer is given the opportunity to contribute and in turn also become a creator. Social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.) blogs and Wikis are all example forms of Web 2.0.

Tim O’Reilly’s Meme Map (as seen below) really helped me in understanding the uses and conditions of Web 2.0. The meme encapsulates all important areas of our Web 2.0 study from Reader 1.

http://www.oreilly.com/pub/a/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html (Viewed 06/03/2018) 

Here I have summarized my understanding of the 3 competencies that are relevant to professional practice through the use of Web 2.0; 

1. Architectures of participation

Oxford dictionary writes that participation is “The act of taking part in something”  (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/participation 08/03/18). In terms of Web 2.0 we see participation with two uses - not only as taking part but also by contributing and creating. In order to participate, the opportunities to get involved must be easily accessible,  which is what Web 2.0 can give us due to it’s forever evolving form. 

I see it as a cycle -

Web 2.0 creates opportunities 

↗                                       ↘

The platform grows, Web 2.0 learns              We see, participate, contribute

 ↖                        ↙

Others see, participate, contribute

Web 2.0 has bought us forward into a time of mass communication, there is an unlimited amount of people who can participate and with the more users, the more it improves. Ullrich et al. (2008) states “Each user is therefore immediately a member of a community with a low barrier to participate.”  (P.707) 

2. Remixable data and transformations

This is about the materials and data which we use and reuse in Web 2.0 such as photographs, music, text and ideas etc. There is a noticeable blurring to the authenticity when it comes to sharing or contributing to Web 2.0. This allows us to be able to share what isn't necessarily 'our own' but we can build on it in order to create (or add) something which is 'our own'. There isn't an obvious distinction between the creator and the audience.

3. Harnessing collective intelligence

Not only does Web 2.0 allow us to share and build relationships within our individual professional networks, it also allows us to expand further than this. The online community comes together as strangers and equals in order to share and communicate. Web 2.0 has 3 key functions which allow us to do this;

• It is a social system (allowing people to interact and share)
• It has an intelligent search engine (will link you to people/events of similar interests)
• User intelligence (we actively help improve the system just by using it)

My professional use of Web 2.0:

As a dancer, one of my main uses of Web 2.0 is through dance forums where I can access and share information about upcoming auditions, productions and current news updates from the industry. I use sites such as;

https://www.danceeurope.net

au-di-tions.com

balletcompanies.com

www.pointemagazine.com

dancers.mandy.com

www.networkdance,com

On sites such as Network Dance and Mandy Dancers, you have the opportunity to have your own profile. This is an easy way to promote yourself within the industry and to keep everyone updated on your activities and share information. I also regularly receive emails detailing auditions and news which the site has deemed significant to me personally. My Network Dance profile is; www.networkdance.com/Syanne-Day/#board

I am also a big user of social media and can be found on a few platforms this way. I have a Facebook, Instagram and Twitter account. I mainly keep my Facebook as a personal account and try to only use this to stay connected with friends and family (who like many others in my industry are scattered around the world!) My Instagram account is what I would consider my more 'professional' account. I use this to promote myself as a dancer by sharing information on productions I am taking part in and rehearsal process updates. Reflecting on this, I could be using this a lot more and could be sharing a lot more than I do. 

To touch on the ethical side of this reader, I want to share a revelation which I recently had regarding my Twitter account. I have to confess that up until recently I thought I had deleted my Twitter account which I had made and used many years ago. Turns out I hadn't actually deleted the account, and all my young and naive tweets are still all online for everyone to see. Now I didn't write anything too outrageous or ethically wrong by any standards, but I am not keen on the idea of current/future employers seeing my tweets from way back before I even considered life beyond school days! Maybe I think too much about what I post, but I bet there are many people who probably do post without thinking. Are they considering how this may reflect on them professionally? Does this affect us professionally when applying for jobs? As these platforms grow and become more and more apart of our daily life, should we all be taking more care in what we contribute to the online society? I only pose these questions as I know how social media and indeed the use of Web 2.0 is now a huge part of society and is growing everyday.

I read on Izzy Clough's blog from this task about how social media can have negative knock on effects on society in terms of mental health and how social media can cloud our judgment of real life. There are not all positive effects and although it is exciting to see this platform grow, I feel there should be now more education put in place at schools to educate the uses and knock on effects if social media is not used with the right kind of care. Should social media and what we post online be a bigger part of our education when we are younger? Could this help us avoid regret when we get to that professional stage? I know not everyone would listen but surely it will at least allow some of us the opportunity to make more rounded decisions about what we choose to post and contribute to?

Bibliography
-O'Reilly, T. (2006) What is Web 2.0: Design patterns and business models for the generation of software, viewed 6th March 2018
-Ullrich, C., Borau, K., Luo, H., Tan, X., Shen, L. & Shen, R. (2008) 'Why Web 2.0 is good for learning and for research: principles and prototypes', ACM, pp. 705-714
-http://www.oreilly.com/pub/a/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html
-https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/participation viewed 8th March 2018

Opening the doors (Tuesday 20th Feb discussion group)

Last Tuesday I attended my first discussion group. It was great to hear from other students from varying different stages of the course. I have to admit - at first when the module 3 students were discussing the 'importance of literature within their inquiry' and their 'literature reviews', I had pretty much no idea how I was ever going to be able to contribute towards the discussion. But by the end of the discussion, my understanding had become clearer and I could see how the work I am doing at the moment (in module 1) is in fact giving me valuable skills to practice using before I get to that same stage.

After reading our module 1 handbooks, all of us new starters were keen to discuss Web 2.0 in order to further understand it's use. Matt (from module 2) helped us all greatly in describing Web 1.0 as a source for giving us information, whilst Web 2.0 gave us the information whilst also offering space for us (the reader) to contribute. We had all started to try and reflect this into our professional lives and were struggling to understand the connection, but Helen and the others from the higher modules informed us that we needed to look at it all with a much more broader view.

Bearing this in mind, I had been keen to discuss the use and content of our blogs. I understood that it was a use for us to reflect and share with fellow students, but I wanted some clarification of how broad I can go with the subjects that I write about. I was told that there wasn't really a limit to this, just so long as my blogs can inspire a broad discussion with 1 key question running through them. Like 1 thread running through the centre, with many branches of relevance that can be discussed. Essentially my blogs should be opening the doors to interesting and (hopefully) some relevant and thought-provoking discussion!

I hope this can help (particularly any module 1's who couldn't make the discussion, but may have had similar queries to us).   

Blog no.1!

Last Saturday (10th Feb) I attended the induction Skype session as I begin my journey at Middlesex University. Meeting and hearing from other students, both old and new on the course was a great help to me in not only settling my nerves in re-entering the academic world, but also in hearing about how fellow professionals manage to pursue successful careers in their fields as well as working to complete a degree.

I unfortunately do probably still remain a bit of a mystery to everyone who was part of that session as my microphone was not working (for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to turn it on!) So I spent the session trying to get involved as best I could by typing. Thankfully everyone was very patient and still made me feel included. And as I said (or typed) during the session, it was as if I was prepping for my blogs as trying to get across thoughts and feelings through written word (where you don’t rattle on for too long) isn’t always the easiest.

Coming away from the session, I have noted down some of the key points made of which I will be taking forward with me into this course:

• Create your own set of deadlines. I started a new dance contract this week. It was a very last minute achievement and really didn’t expect for my whole timetable to be turned upside down all at once, with uni and job starting at the same time. So the idea to create my own deadlines on top of the course set ones, will be of great use to me. That way I can stay on top of my work, but also with extra time left in case performance/rehearsals become especially busy. This way I should always be able to submit my work on time. 
• Note down as soon as you have an idea. An idea for a blog or a point of interest to research or reflect on could pop up at any time but just as easily could be forgotten if not written down immediately. I have now started to carry a notebook around with me dedicated to these all important moments of inspiration. 
• Voice memos. I have never used this before, but it is a great idea if there isn’t time to write down an idea. So I will use this to store up ideas from moments when I’m especially busy. 

We also discussed the use of writing our blogs. Adesola told us it was best to write short blogs regularly (trying to stick to around 400 words). This will help with refining our thinking and help us to build on our academic writing style. Blogging is also a great tool to encourage discussion, so it is best to go at writing a blog as if it is a question in process. 

And so I have come to the end of my first blog. I am very much looking forward to meeting more professionals on this course and reading and discussing ideas with everyone!