Learning from my students - and a Twitter tale....

I am reviewing students' final reflective assignments at the moment (on the theme of team work) and I noticed a number of them referring to a specific model (http://www.team-diagnostics.com/the-model.php) which I had not seen before.

It is a really interesting model developed by Hackman and building on his earlier work on Team Effectiveness, which I do refer to in my module.

I assumed students had found this by googling the name Hackman, but I later realised that I had myself re-Tweeted a link to the model (without actually reading the article - as a "save for later" read) and simultaneously posted it on my LinkedIn feed.

I now realise that those students who used it are the same ones who follow me on Twitter and Linked In.

On a related note: as I have been marking, I have had a slight sense of irritation that so few of the resources I carefully curate at the start of the module ever actually end up in the students' reference lists - preferring as they do to google and use whatever popular business style websites pop up on top.

However, there are also some instances where they have managed to find articles that really add depth to the discussion and which I have found develop my understanding of the subject.

This lends weight to a) my intention next year to include NO RESOURCES WHATSOEVER on the module and let them research their own

and b) my belief that Twitter can be a useful tool to share this research in and around the module

In fact a completely Tweeted module sounds good to me!

(p.s this was my first attempt at embedding a free image from Getty images - now freely available for non commercial embedding: give it a go!)

#rhizo14 Week 2 Enforced Independence

Well there's an oxymoron if ever I heard one....

.... and yet this is exactly what I am wrestling with in my first year undergraduate module. The students enter University expecting - and sometimes even demanding - very detailed guidance, worksheets, notes and handouts. They think lectures are the way University education should be done - I even had some first year students tell me today that they preferred exams as course work required them to do too much reading and they couldn't handle the distant deadlines: pressure, recall of facts, 2 hours of hand cramps - this is what learning is all about!

So these same students then turn up to my module and they are in a large open space with 100 other students, seated at round tables with Apple Macs available. Or they can bring their own device. Whatever. They get a few minutes of introduction from me for this week's theme and then they get to it - searching the internet, answering questions, posting responses on Twitter, Facebook, Padlet. Whatever. We think about digital identity, digital citizenship, research skills, ethics, intellectual property.  I provide a detailed written structure for the module through the VLE where I post links to videos and articles for them to read in their own time. They get feedback through a short formative piece evaluating the role of social media in research; they choose their own work groups for a final summative project using Storify or Pinterest (or... whatever) to curate their online research.

Yup. They hate it.

There's not enough teaching. They don't understand the point of what they are doing. They don't get the relevance of social media to social science research. There are no handouts! (Well, very few). The group is too big and too noisy (these are justifiable complaints in my view!). They can't find anything on the VLE (also possibly justified - its UI is Byzantine). They hate the Macs.

and yet ...... Week 13 of the module: they settle down to the task, they use the Macs with ease, they ask fewer questions. They seem engaged - with the task, with the conversations in their groups. They may just be getting it.

I cut my teeth, teaching wise, in a Person Centred Counselling course.  The curriculum was designed by the students (within some constraints). Students peer assessed all the time - in formative practical work and in the final summative dissertation and case study. The group process was in the hands of the group - I was a facilitator. Things got messy - a lot of the time. They hated it. One particularly angry student stated (to the whole group) that the course was rubbish because everything the students learnt they did entirely by themselves. On the final day, after a year of being angry with me about this, she repeated her claim - only now she got it. Yes - they had done it all by themselves. They were/had become independent learners.

The difference with my current students is that they don't really have the same Freedom to Learn. Other parts of their course are taught traditionally. There are exams and course work and grades and structures that will judge the worthiness of the student to progress to another level. There are rules about plagiarism and using Google and Facebook and Twitter and Wikipedia will be frowned upon (maybe even punished). And the biggest oxymoron of all - I am forcing them to be independent. I am not permitting them to learn in the way that is cosy for them, I am imposing (through my power as teacher) a set of conditions and expectations about what is good for them. Just as I do as a parent to my children.

Knowing when to nurture and when to push the chicks out of the nest is key - as is knowing the difference between encouraging independence and abandonment. I don't know how, when or if I ever get this "right" - but then, I am still learning....

#digilit #digitalidentity Week 2 - they came back for more!

....so this week I planned things better and simplified the task.

I discovered with the smaller seminar group on Friday that the students really like Twitterfall so I used that to gather responses to the task alongside the Discussion Board. I also managed to get Apple TV working and one or two started to ask me to display their work.

I still need to go slower.... what looks like a really simple and straightforward task to me took a bit of explaining, but once they got the hang of it, they were off. I am so grateful for the wireless mic when I need to stop the chatter and give a bit of information/instruction.

I really like that I am not tied to the lectern and can circulate around the class. Everyone seems to be pretty much on task most of the time - and generally having fun doing it.

The technological problems are there - we had at least 10 Macs that had not been logged off so had to be hard-rebooted (switch it off and then on again, basically). One of the screens had shorted and the sound was consequently too low when I showed a video - but IS were round in a flash (no pun intended) and set it all up again for me.

So today was an exercise in reviewing and protecting our digital identity. I used this great resource on Digital Identity for Health Professionals  which I can really recommend. Students took individual case studies and worksheets and concluded by presenting three action points they would recommend to others. They seemed engaged and interested in the topic and curious to Google themselves or check their Facebook privacy etc. I think it was a far more engaging session than would have been possible had I simply stood up at the front and lectured them about the perils of social media.

I have also been really impressed by the way students have engaged beyond the classroom, posting their presentations and discussion threads, Tweeting their thoughts. In order not to exclude students who are not on Twitter, I have collected Tweets into a Storify page and posted this on the Learning Room.

Dystopia now

Blade Runner cityscape

On the EDCMOOC this week readings and videos consider utopian and dystopian views of technology.
Generally I have considered myself in the utopian camp .... for the last 4 years I have been waxing lyrical about Twitter and my PLN; I have spent the last couple of years advocating the use of wikis, Facebook and blogs to my students as a way of collaborating, connecting, learning and engaging. However this week I have been sensitive to some of the down sides.... 250000 Twitter accounts hacked.....loud personal conversations on mobile phones on the bus.... a teenager's relationship suddenly thrown off course by the injudicious posting of a photograph on Facebook..... The Life Scientific on Radio 4 discussing the use of robots in combat ...

I haven't come to any conclusions but this heightened awareness is interesting and I will no doubt be exploring it more as the mooc progresses.

The more pressing dystopian vision for me concerns the future of teaching in higher education. Again I tend to be of a fairly cheery and optimistic outlook, but in a week when - over on OLDSMOOC - I have been looking at the art and science of learning design, I came face to face in a recent meeting with the real issues that shape how education is delivered (and I realise even that phrase has contentious and dystopian overtones). This consisted of a a conversation that centred not on pedagogical principles, nor even on what learners need, but how to make optimum use of classrooms and reduce staff input whilst making the KIS look good. And the message that it is not for the teaching staff to determine how best they can deliver their subjects but that this will be dictated by senior management. Grainne Conole's 7 C's of Learning Design need expanding to include an eighth - Constraints.

But to end on a positive note..... I teach a module for final year social work students which requires them to develop an online presentation of  a group project. The first year I ran this, blogs and Facebook were the tools most chose. Last year I introduced the group to wikis which was a modest success.

Last week in a classroom exploration of possible topics and platforms for this year's set of projects, one group proposed a complex but exciting way of working. Each group member is to maintain an individual blog  applying the main theories and concepts of the module to their chosen case study (Barack Obama in this case) as well as reflections on the group process; a group Twitter account is to be set up so that each member can Tweet links to the relevant posts in their blogs  and indeed to other "curated" resources - as a way of developing an aggregated resource on the topic of leadership. Frankly, if I had suggested this as a modus operandi I would have had a revolt on my hands, but watching and listening as the group developed their plan - even with some clear digital native/immigrant divide in evidence - was very exciting for me. I will be eagerly anticipating the outcome!

Love, Friendship and Twitter

"Love, friendship and Twitter" by @virtualleader

http://tinyurl.com/4uad2pc

Posted from Diigo.

Use of Social Media in Health Care - Report by Deloitte in U.S.

• Issue Brief — Social Networks in Health Care: Communication, collaboration and insights « ResourceShelf

  tags: socialmedia HSC

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Some time ago I blogged about how reluctant the NHS is to let its staff use social media but also how so many NHS organisations are beginning to appear on Twitter and Facebook, etc.

Interesting then to see this report from Deloitte in the US about how social media is gaining respectability and more widespread use in health care there.

I am particularly interested as I am very keen on teaching Health and Social Care students how to use these tools - Twitter, Google Sites, Wikis and Blogs are all going to feature in my leadership and management modules this year. So now I can justify this as more than just "technology for its own sake" - students hoping to be employed in the health and social care sectors need to be social media literate.

Responding to Employers - Moving into the Mainstream

SLIDES Leading and Learning Virtually

View more PowerPoint from Jane Challinor

These are the papers and slides from my presentation at the Employer Engagament Conference at DMU on June 11th. Please feel free to explore the rest of this blog for more discussion about e-learning and virtual teams.

Google Wave

Recently been exploring Google Wave - a new platform that combines instant messaging with Discussion Board/email and has something of the wiki about it as multiple editors are also allowed.

Access is by invitation only - and I have a few spare invites if anyone wants one - so I was not an early adopter but there is still an air of "what do we do now?" about many "Waves" as the message threads are named.

I have made a concerted effort this week to invite a number of work colleagues to get on board as I can see potential here for collaboration on projects. It also occurs to me that it presents a great opportunity for people to keep in touch when working in virtual teams.

Here is a link to the Introductory Video which goes some way to explaining what it is/does. And here is a blog post about a really exciting use of a Wave involving a thousand or more young people across the globe.

Currently I am involved in one discussion about the use of Twitter in education but most of the Waves that come my way seem to be of the "what do we USE this for???" variety. Pretty much like Twitter in the beginning I guess.

It definitely needs people to be involved and active - and there needs to be a specific purpose to the Wave before people will get involved and start to use it......so I am still exploring and will no doubt write more about my adventures on the Wave as they unfold.

We love the NHS and Social Media

A year ago when I started this blog, I struggled to find examples of the NHS' use of social media and it was perhaps for this reason that some students on the module struggled themselves with knowing how to apply various tools to solve their own communication conundrums.

My instinct tells me, however, that the use of Web 2.0, social networking sites is increasing - and used with increasing sophistication. There are admittedly still huge swathes of the population living in blissful ignorance of such phenomena: I have girlfriends who run screaming from the room when I twitter on about Twitter; my own brothers who have heavy weight jobs in IT shake their head in disapproval when I mention Facebook, and trying to get my academic colleagues using Blogger or Ning is a bit like trying to introduce a Sky+ box into a community of Amish. (Admittedly, I don't actually own a Sky+ box myself, and my knowledge of the Amish is restricted to repeated viewings of Witness - and only then because I like Harrison Ford...)



Anyway - to get to the point, I have recently picked up a number of interesting developments where the NHS meets social networking.

For instance: there are now a large number of Trusts and national health bodies using Twitter:

http://twitter.com/NHSmarketing

http://twitter.com/nhsemployers

http://twitter.com/NHSNottsCounty

http://twitter.com/NHSChoices

http://twitter.com/NHSLeicester

to name just a few.

I even came across some great FaceBook pages devoted to the NHS:















......and this Wiki caught my eye too....
http://wikiph.org/index.php?title=Wiki_Public_Health

so maybe you could now think about how you could get your message across to colleagues or users of your service using social media?

You might also want to explore other media that the NHS is using - such as YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIeAzjuAWUE

Top Ten tools

for (on line) learning:


http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/janechallinor.html




itunes - educational podcasts: I found a series of Spanish podcasts that have transformed my learning of the language, convincing me there has to be more value in this medium than I currently exploit more with my own students

Twitter - the place for links, updates, chat, sharing, collecting opinions, professional and social networking

Ning - I have been part of two really valuable Ning communities for learning this year: I really like its flexibility, the attractive designs available. I intend to use it with my own students in the coming year.

Skype - invaluable for tutorials with my students and yet again for my own Spanish language studies: I meet with a teacher on line every fortnight to practice conversation

elluminate Vroom - free on line classroom (for up to three people)

Wimba create - bit of a fan currently - using to develop on line learning materials for Blackboard-hosted courses.

Camstudio - screencapture software (free download) which can be edited in movie maker with separate audio if needed.

Slideshare - upload powerpoint presentations and documents to share easily with others. Source of great learning resources too

Googledocs - brilliant tool for collaboration and sharing

Blogger - still there as my blog tool of choice


and number 11 would be diigo.com - social bookmarking site: save web links, network, create discussion groups, annotate pages and store notes.

Personal Learning Environment

Today I am about to start decorating my study. I made a joke on my Facebook profile that this is my Personal Learning Environment. In the old days, that's what it would have been.

I remember having something called a carrel in the 6th form centre at school where I kept text books, files, and stationery, and which I decorated with photos of pop stars and little artistic additions of my own. My teenage bedroom was similarly a repository of art materials, writing paper, books, magazines and music. When not at home, I haunted the local library and at University I spent many happy hours in the stacks, researching and writing.

I used to dream of a house with a private study lined with books - to me the ultimate in "on tap" knowledge and my ideal of a perfect environment in which to relax, learn, withdraw from the demands of the world. These were my ideas of what a personal learning environment looked like.

Today my study is a former dining room with some course materials in hard copy and a handful of text books but the key equipment is my PC, printer/scanner, my laptop, my iphone, the wireless broadband hub, the webcam and the phone. My physical personal learning environment is a room housing the equipment that allows me to keep in touch with the world.

Learning is not something that happens in the privacy of my study but is collaborative. It is not something handed down by an expert which I sit back absorbing passively, it is a collaborative event, and an active one.

This isn't new - seminars and tutorials were always the places where I learned the most becasue I could hear and dispute others views and have my own questioned in turn.

What is new is the fact that many of these conversations now take place on line. That most of what I read is stored electronically rather than in paper copies in my cupboards, and that the trails of my researches are noted in digital bookmarking sites rather than index cards.

To keep track of all of these digital resources requires a system - a place where all the various internet sites I use daily are easily accessed. I happen to use Netvibes: to collect "feeds" from my favourite blogs and news services, keep up with my friends' updates on Facebook and join in Twitter conversations. To remember links to important sites, and what tasks I have to complete, to access music and video sites and provide bite sized chunks of a Spanish language course I am following.

When I think of the term PLE, I sometimes think of Netvibes as the most obvious visual representation of my learning resources network, which is the reason why I am using a screenshot of my personal page to illustrate this post. But the real PLE is the whole network of colleagues - and the resources they access and contribute to in their turn (see for example this Twitter conversation about Personal Learning Environments)- with whom I communicate on a daily basis. With current internet tools, we have the capability to enter into collaborative learning that takes place on a world wide platform and yet is both immediate and highly personal.

Collaborative Learning

image: flickr Andross

Rewriting the introduction to the Virtual Teams Module this week and, more particularly, redesigning the process.


I want this to be an interactive and collaborative module which simulates virtual team working, so I am asking students to work together in small teams, on a project of their choosing and to present their final work electronically (as we never meet face to face on this module!)

In the midst of my ruminations on this I was given an idea for a blog post by my Twitter compañero @ffolliet :

"The sadness about education is that clever people can't always share their wisdom".

I think what he meant was that some very knowledgeable teachers are not very good at expressing and sharing what they know - and that is certainly true.

There is a famous cycle of learning that shows the learner moving through unconscious incompetence ("I don't know what I don't know" - the pre-learner) through conscious incompetence ("aaagh! I am terrible at this!" - the beginning learner) onto conscious competence ("hey! I am getting the hang of /pretty good at this!" - the apprentice) and finally to unconscious competence ( "I can do this in my sleep" - the Expert).

Teachers, it is alleged, are worse than useless if they are at the Expert stage because they have forgotten the struggles of learning, do not necessarily know how to help someone get to their elevated levels and can't understand why someone else is struggling to grasp the point. (see my earlier post on The Curse of Knowledge).

I think though when I first read this Tweet I immediately leaped to another interpretation: how difficult we make it in education for very clever, knowledgeable and experienced students to share their knowledge.

In Distance Learning with mature, work based students I think it only fair to assume that students will have valuable skills, knowledge and experience to share and to build upon - so why should I think I am the only person worth listening to? - or assume that the set texts and articles I am recommending are the only knowledge worth sharing?

In Action Learning (and similarly in Person Centred approaches to teaching and coaching) we start from the premise that the "client" knows where it hurts and how to fix it - they just need help in articulating & acting on that knowledge.

So - just as @ffolliet's comment on Twitter stimulated me to write this blog and share something that deep inside I have known for a long time, just maybe forgotten - with a well timed question or prompt we can all bring out the cleverness inside each other. Student-directed groups, action learning sets, wikis for collaborative writing are all spaces where we can do this.

This isn't signalling mass unemployment for academics - just that the role has to change from being the clever person in the room who has all the answers to being the one who knows how to encourage everyone to ask clever questions of one another.

Peer assessment

image: flickr chrissuderman

Not been on the blog for a while - holiday in Spain took precedence, I am afraid!

So today just a few thoughts about peer assessment as I am contemplating the topic for an assignment I am writing. This has led me to some interesting reading: predominantly Rethinking Assessment in Higher Education by Boud and Falchikov (2007: Routledge)

The main arguments against peer assessment seem to be concern for the reliability of the marking process and consequent need for training of the students. I would add that it is also deeply unpopular amongst students who generally would much rather hand over total responsibility for the process to tutors - so as not to be put in the position of sitting in judgement on their friends and colleagues ( or even on themselves: self assessment is no less unpopular in my experience).

In favour is the real world analogy - in their working lives students (and particularly work based/distance learning/ mature students) are already involved in the business of peer and colleague assessment in the course of their work - checking reports, carrying out staff appraisals, NVQ assessing, supervising another's practice.

Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that learning with & from peers is the most natural way we pick up new ideas and information (that's certainly why I blog, Twitter, diigo and wiki every day!), which is certainly an argument for collaborative learning if not peer assessment. And it furthers life long learning: if we can turn to friends and colleagues for coaching and feedback as we approach new challenges in our work or even in our hobbies, we continue the process of reflection and informal learning almost without being aware of it.

So how do we make it work?

Some ideas from Nancy Falchikov include

1. sharing the assessment criteria or


2. even better, designing such criteria with the students


3. training or scaffolding so that assessment skills are developed over time and not sprung as a surprise (and a big scary task) right at the end of the course

In another place in the book, there is a chapter on assessment and emotion. It is important not to forget how emotionally fraught assessment (judgement) is. Awaiting the marks on an assignment is deeply stressful for some: we feel we are being judged for who we are, not what we wrote/created. Getting those marks from a tutor allows us a measure of distance: we can be angry at them or the system if we are disappointed. Being judged by our peers may actually be more terrifying!!

In my own experience I have had mixed feelings about peer assessment. It was a system used widely in training for counsellors and because we worked in "triads" with peer observers of counselling practice at every workshop for three years, we all became relatively skilled at and relaxed with the practice. The final assessment with peer assessment on the practice portfolio was consequently less daunting.

However, at its worst, peer assessment puts the peer in the authority position and encourages them to take on the prevalent culture of whatever educational institution they have experienced: if their own experience of assessment is largely critical or punitive, peers will mirror this. Tutors therefore have to train students not only in the mechanics of assessment, but need also to model how it is applied - with fairness, humility, self awareness and respect for the student being assessed.

Hmmmm - training the institution's markers sounds like the FIRST step!!

.........and then three come along at once!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dotbenjamin/

1. listening to Radio 4 on Weds afternoon (Thinking Allowed, Laurie Taylor) about ill health and redundancy. It made me realise how the fear of redundancy is so debilitating too. This is something that afflicts the flexible worker as much as anyone else. Ironically I spent 10 years working freelance in various aspects of teaching and consultancy and rejoined the salaried masses because I thought I would be more secure (lol*).... in the last 8 years I have been made redundant twice and on fixed term contracts for over 5 years.


Then this morning I was chatting to a colleague who, like me, has been facing the end of a "fixed term" contract for several gloomy and unsettling months. (Joyfully my colleague has just been offered a new post with the same employer! Yay!!) But this is about the third or fourth person I have spoken to recently facing such uncertainty and one has to question how this affects productivity and creativity.

For some it's a question of going into lockdown, hiding under the duvet or infecting everyone around with a slightly depressed and anxious air (me). For others it's about going into overdrive to impress your current or potential new employers that you are a good team player, reliable and productive (er, this is me too) .... either way, I don't think its a situation that is good for the soul. So I'll end this section with an uplifting Tweet from His Holiness the Dalai Lama (Oh yes, he's on Twitter too, you unbelievers!)

"Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck"

2. the power of the wiki is incredible: I am working on three simultaneously - using one as a personal learning portfolio to present my teaching log for a PGCE in Higher Education, a second as a staff development and networking site for academics new to e-learning and the third as an induction programme for new students on an e-learning programme. Interestingly, I am not deliberately using them to try to develop collaborative working or encourage any contribution from other members (other than discussion threads and member profiles) - simply as informal websites I can edit, add content too, and present in an attractive and interesting way (I am using Wetpaint.com by the way - not least because they will get rid of ads for free if its a site for educational purposes).

However, I was really struck by this use of a wiki in Australia to deal with the ongoing crisis caused by the recent fires. (Interesting aside too that the wiki's fame was spread further by use of Twitter...and, yes, I am virtually proselytizing now!)




3. Somebody (@Onenterframe) sent out a random tweet this week asking for one word that summed up the reason for your success in life. I couldn't do it in one word, but it is about passion for learning (as someone else - @dreig - noted to me in another Tweet today!)

So my personal learning this week - a tad on the geeky side - has been about creating video tutorials for e-learning students. I have discovered two exciting things recently: I can create a powerpoint preso, save all the slides as JPG files then drop them into Movie Maker so I can add audio, upload to YouTube. Yes I KNOW I could use Articulate, but at the moment I can't seem to make it work for me, I find the audio recording tedious and difficult to edit, and then I have to host it somewhere......

Second new thingummybob - Camstudio. I like Jing a lot for capturing what I am doing on screen, with a voice over, so I can show students how to do it (how to use a blog or a wiki, how to get to their student emails for the first time...). Its quick and free and looks great when its done. But I can't edit it in Movie Maker and I only get 5 mins recording time etc. So Yesterday I switched to Camstudio (also free) which creates avi files of indefinite length that are editable in MovieMaker, uploadable to Youtube and so can be cut, interspersed with slides, have music added... you name it.
I am of course hoping for an Oscar next year or at least some sort of geekgirl award.....
*(I only ever use "lol" for sardonic impact)

10 c's of teleworking

Flickr image:neoporcupine

I don't get why some people don't get working from home. I have had various comments about the lack of socialisation, the fear of being ill-disciplined in their work habits and .....well, that's it mainly.

So why do I love working from home? And how do I overcome the discipline/socialisation thing? Here are the advantages for me:

1. Commute: 30 seconds from breakfast table to pc compared with 1hour minimum drive. No brainer.

2. Carbon footprint - see 1 above. Plus, as I work in a sunny, well insulated room in my house, with large south facing windows, I almost always don't have electric light or heating on. (OK - I gave in during the last couple of weeks of unusually harsh British Winter). My office at work is North facing and single glazed: dark and cold even in summer (its one advantage, I grant you).

3. Comfort. I have THE BEST office chair money can buy. I know the one in my "official" office is supposed to meet basic health and safety requirements but it sucks. Same goes for the cathode ray tube monitor I am supplied with, the migraine inducing overhead fluorescent lighting, the desk that's too high and the foot rest that's too low. At home I have a height adjustable desk, that really excellent chair, a footrest suitable for somebody shorter than 6', bags of natural daylight from my French windows, a flat screen monitor, wrist rests for the keyboard and my mouse hand. All of these were supplied many years ago by the company I worked for on an official "home working" contract. They took their responsibilities seriously, paid for the right equipment and let me buy it back when I left.


4. Company: yes, I do have company at home in the shape of my two lovely cats. They are never grumpy, depressed, jealous, competitive, bitchy, sarcastic or petty. (Except of course with one another, but that's cats for you!) They shower me with love, they are quiet, appreciative and hang on my every word & gesture with blatant adoration.


5. Community - ok, ok: even I know I need a little constructive criticism from time to time. My community consists of my online network. Twitter, Yammer, Skype, blogs, even the odd telephone call or email keep me in touch with a huge community of co-workers in my wider institution, my profession, right across the UK and beyond, who influence my work, provide feedback, ask intelligent questions, work in collaboration on projects, want advice, and yes, provide humour, support, sympathy and human warmth. Non social networkers don't get how it is possible to have real relationships mediated by technology. But it is. And if you doubt it - ask your kids if you can wrestle them away from their mobile phones, MSN or MyBeeboBook for two minutes.....


6. Concentration and creativity - these two go hand in hand for me: in order to research, write, plan, develop and design (even to mark assignments) I need space in my head and on my desk. In the office if I am not directly interrupted, I am constantly aware of people around me and in the corridor. My difficulty isn't in applying enough self discipline to focus on work when I am alone, it's applying too much. I have to remember to get up, stretch, turn away from the screen, have a short walk .....

image: author's own

7. Which brings me to countryside: I chose my house because of its location. A short walk to the rear of my house brings me to a classic English countryside of rolling hills, trees, and water populated by fluffy sheep, friendly cows and cute little squirrels. The birdsong provided by the thrushes and blackbirds is almost deafening....bluetits and robins flit through the branches.... the river is crowded with swans, geese and ducks, along with the odd heron....yes I know the City has Caffe Nero and John Lewis, but really, there is no competition.

8. Computer applications. Work systems are locked down and I don't have admin privileges on my own pc. I can't install anything. No Skype, no Jing, no Tweetdeck, no E-lluminate or Wimba Classroom. No webcam. No headset. Moving from home to office also affects continuity of work (I run around with multiple memory sticks containing whatever project I am currently working on as my work pc never has what I need). And the server is sooooo SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW even searching on the internet is painful. All of this of course restricts my productivity. I reserve office time for face to face meetings: I don't expect to be able to produce anything there.

9. Children (maybe that should be kids to keep the alliteration going): I have two. I like to see them occasionally. Its great to be here when they get out of school so we can chat over the day's tribulations and challenges (theirs and mine!) They are actually teenagers now and won't be around much longer, one way or the other, so this is important time we spend together.


10. last but not least Coffee: I don't really miss Caffe Nero or those other places: I make the best coffee, because its the coffee I like, and I can even do frothy milk now and call it cappuccino.....

If there is a disadvantage it is the occasional suspicious glances of those office-tied individuals who think I put WFH in my diary as a euphemism for watching daytime tv, shopping or private consultancy......

I am lucky in being supported by a boss who judges me on outcomes and not attendance, but to make it a successful and accepted alternative, homeworking does really need proper institutional support.

Teleworking isn't science fiction: it's happening now in millions of homes around the world. One day, as the recession deepens and global warming reality bites, home working will be the norm, and the suspicious glances will be directed at those demented individuals in cars passing each other on congested motorways as they travel in opposite directions to work. "Do you really NEED to do that?" we'll be asking...... "can't you work from home?"

Digital Identity: the edited me

Being part of the Digifolios experience has given me pause for thought on the nature of digital identity - not least because I didn't know what one was until last week.



I guess my first foray into this world was when my good friend and unofficial mentor, @stujohnson (his twitter id), invited me to be part of Facebook. He's a good deal younger than me and I thought FB was for, well, people a good deal younger than me. For 6 months I had two friends on FB: him and a mutual work colleague.



Then about 18 months ago, my official mentor and now friend, @hallymk1 (his twitter id) invited a bunch of newly embarked PGCE students (of which I was one) to contribute to a blog: and so my blogging self was born.



Only last February I discovered delicious, netvibes and RSS (again, my friend @stujohnson) and in June, my boss introduced me to Twitter. Since last summer I have been blogging here and Tweeting as Virtual Leader.



I still find the notion of a digital id rather scary. ID theft is a worry of course, as is spamming, but its more about how I will be perceived in this virtual world. Eventually all things connect up and I risk having aspects of my life and work inadvertently revealed in places I'd rather they weren't.



Its not that I have dark and shameful secrets to hide (well none I am going to tell you about here!) just that I am essentially, and paradoxically, rather partial to maintaining my privacy: I keep a private blog about my learning on my PGCE programme, for example, and I maintain a wholly separate online identity as an aficionada of salsa - different FB profile, website, blog.....



I have read elsewhere that on line relationships permit a freedom and intimacy that f2f doesn't always allow: it is possible to hide behind a created identity to be bolder and more open than we would be in "real" life, without the risks of rejection, perhaps?



In the same way that my profile pic is carefully chosen, cropped and "fixed" to present an acceptable face to the world, asynchronous blogging, discussion boards and emails - even video blogs that I can review before publishing - present the edited me.

Trust and communication

image by Nick in exsilio



Marking assignments could be a chore but I feel as if I am witnessing the results of some very interesting action research projects and listening in on some very thoughtful and at times profound reflections on what it is to be part of a dispersed or virtual team.

First conclusion I come to is that working remotely is nothing new in the NHS and certainly not in Scotland. In particular Community Health practioners of all disciplines have long been used to working away from base and their managers have had to be creative about managing such teams even before the advent of mobile phones.

Secondly, for such teams, mobile technology doesn't get much better than a mobile phone (Blackberry if you are lucky) and access to collaborative spaces like blogs and wikis is a pipe dream when you are constantly out on the road. Text messaging is essential for quick updates and social networking. (See also Ken Thompson on Bio Teaming: http://tinyurl.com/39fmts )

Thirdly, building Trust is the foundation stone for all virtual teams. Without Trust communication breaks down, messages get misinterpreted and more mistrust abounds... a vicious cycle.With trust, teams become more creative and more productive, and the leader trusts them more, and the team trusts in the leader more: a virtuous cycle. And what builds trust? Communication.......

Fourth - communication requires structure: netiquette is helpful and aids clarity, regular messages from the leader to all the team maintain a sense of belonging and being kept in the loop, having a place to find and deposit information for and by the team is helpful (a shared drive, a wiki, an intranet space - some sort of virtual noticeboard)

Fifth - training is needed to ensure everyone communicates in the best way for the team. Students came up with some intriguing ideas - putting a Christmas e-card on a shared drive to see who could access it; organising a Chritmas social event via the team wiki; getting the team to design and manage the induction of a new team member so s/he could get quickly immersed in the team norms.

I have also paused to reflect on my own experiencing of managing a virtual learning group - specifically one set within the Scottish NHS.

Technology is difficult and unstable: not everyone is able to access the Wimba classroom we set up so remote sessions of the normal classroom style were not a great success. Not everyone has webcam, headset and mic.

However chat on Blackboard worked well: it could equally be Skype or MSN chat. OK it was like herding cats at times, but the students enjoyed the "meeting" space and it added a much needed social dimension to the module. We covered topics related to the assignment and students shared ideas with one another about team building, developing trust and improving communications.

To inject a bit more of a personal element into the process I set up a video introduction (early in this blog) and used Jing from time to time to teach about the technological aspects of the course. These were well received. I think on reflection that podcasting would really add something here. Regular updates on key topics could be posted so that students could access them in their own time - again mostly out of work time so that NHS firewalls don't block media.

I have also since discovered - and gained access to - a community space within the NHS Scotland e-library where a discussion board and document sharing space could be set up specifically for this programme. This could provide the answer to the firewall problem and would leave students with a legacy - a space where graduates could continue to meet after the end of the programme and which they could colonise for their own work teams' use, instead of having to try and set up their own wiki with all the attendant access issues. I think there is an important learning here about using the avialable technology and what is already familiar!

My own e-learning coach asked me to think about what more I could do in terms of "teaching" on this module.....

I am not keen to lecture - with Wimba or podcast - and the evidence suggests that the learning materials on Blackboard are well accessed and provide a sound basis from which students can tackle the assignment.

Providing a space where they can discuss their responses to that material seems to me to be the key - but instead of the activities we currently have, I think the discussion boards would be better used in

• getting students to read articles and present their responses,



• setting up small groups to work together on short focused tasks



• presenting short case studies or issues for discussion in the style of an action learning set

I also think a social networking element is needed: one comment that struck me is that virtual teams lack a space where they can bump into one another for a quick chat. Something like Twitter might be the answer here, if, once again, people can be persuaded to try it or can find their way around the technological problems of accessing it.

ah well - back to the marking now!

Anthropological study of YouTube

There are dark days in e-learning/ virtual leading, when you feel lost in the onslaught of information, new sites, software possibilities. When communication is not as clear, ordered, humane, and considerate as it might be, and sitting at your PC, you feel isolated, unsupported and wonder .... well, just what is the point of it all?

And then, you glance randomly at a Twitter posting, and a whole new world of insight opens up.

Well that's kind of a snapshot of what I was going through at various stages of yesterday evening. I found this video so exciting, I postponed watching Spooks....

Be warned: it is long, but if you are at all fascinated by the phenomenon that is YouTube,wonder where all this blogging and vlogging is taking us, or are simply curious to know what your kids are up to - persevere....

Tweet Tweet Tweet

and while we are on the subject of simple communications platforms - here's a nice little blog post I came across about the many uses of Twitter (and yes - I found it on Twitter...).

what stood out for me was the following quote:

A diffuse kind of ad-hoc educational institution emerges from the twittersphere in this way. There is no teacher and no student. We’re all teaching and learning from each other.

So if you still don't know what it is, now's the time to find out... about twitter

nuff said

the blog is dead: it's official:
http://tinyurl.com/5f59ns