Activity 7.4 - An example of self assessment

Source

Ogilvie, Karen (2008) 'Re(2): Activity 7.4 - Robin's self Assess', Open University - H808 aeb324 R self ass forum, 05 December 2008, 11:27 PM

I found Robin's presentation very convincing.. Key for me was drawing on evidence that most of us are already familiar with (so we have some "reasonable" proof that it hasn't been fabricated, perhaps "planted" ;-) ) and we could see the series of related activities evolving (if we were prepared to follow them). In fact the discussion boards offer us a wonderful ability to "follow" at least most of the progression.

However, I can also relate to Karen's earlier comment

Having said that, I'm not convinced that I fully understand what a 'principled appraoch to self-assessment is'... - Karen Ogilvie

Perhaps the principles need to be spelled out so that we're entirely clear about how Robin's self assessment is grounded.

The use of three pieces was significant. Is this intended to be a form of triangulation? I bring this up because I'm recalling my phone interview with Kathy Chang Barker (a Canadian expert on eportfolios) where I asked her a [ fcp://@oufcnt1.open.ac.uk,%231004824/IET%20H808%2008I/H808%2008I%20Tutor%20Groups/H808%2008I%20Annes%20Group/H808%20aeb324%20Ideas/%23156388667 ]similar question. and she came back to me with this answer.

What I'm still not clear on is the relevance of rating one's ability here. That appears to be so subjective .. almost out of the blue .. that it's practically useless to anyone other than oneself. What might be more meaningful to me would be a realization of a new learning objective that relates to this or came out of this exercise... and perhaps over time, one could use the attainment of the these various objectives as evidence of "above average" ability.

Activity 3.1 - personal & professional development objectives

What have I learned about my strengths and weaknesses?

Weaknesses?
On the whole I'm most vulnerable in a few key areas... researching new developments, issues and academic findings stands out as the most pressing one. When I think about it, I'm more of a "handson" learner .. and thus I tend to avoid it or at the very least only "do" it when something becomes topical enough that it requires learning more about it in formal ways. I'm not one to devote time to do it on a regular basis (and I'm now really curious how others address the same need for it) but the exercise of doing a detailed review of my job description made it pretty obvious that my current strategy won't be enough. I also realized the importance of promoting effective community building - something that I highly value and yet I haven't committed time and resources to learning more on how to effectively realize it in ages and certainly not much in the way of realizing it online.

It's now looking pretty obvious that in addressing these two shortcomings, my game as an Education Technology Specialist is raised .. and it should help feed the other "stronger cards in my hand".

Strengths?
I really wanted to avoid declaring myself an expert of anything. I'm not fond of the term because I don't consider it something that anyone should really be"annointing themselves with. Perhaps with the formal recognition of my peers on the same topic, I would feel more comfortable using the term.. but that hasn't happened anywhere often enough nor with much fanfare for me to do it. I've only learned since being hired how I have a reputation for making and using learning objects effectively. As a result, I managed to convince myself that perhaps I could be bold enough to apply the term "expert" for my effective use of technology / projects in teaching and learning. But only after carefully reviewing it and even still, I'm bound to be brown nosed by someone else out there. My grounds? A now 20 year period of relatively uninterrupted experience with and increased understandng of the use of technology in teaching and learning.

The matter of comparing myself with my peers brought up a number of other interesting problems and unearthed another set of issues. Our rather small department hardly gives me much of anyone to compare myself with and to go outside the University, I'd be hard pressed to know others of our ilke who I could meet to compare notes. Which raises the issue of professional "isolation" and the need to make a conscious effort to overcome this. Thus the only really viable option seems to be online communities. This theme is emerging more and more.

Activity 3.4 - choosing an ePortfolio system

Recall as part of the University's mission, that our student's expect to graduate as bilingual, it literate, global citizens and leaders. The eportfolio concept offers our undergraduates a number of opportunites to evidence their development in these core areas. As possible examples,

• language development via the collection of speaking and writing samples
• IT development via the production and assembly of evidence and in the design of the eportfolio to hold them
• global citizenship realized via the use of ICT tools to facilitate constructive dialogue with people from other cultures around the world
• leadership skill development via documentation of reflection on community based issues and their choice of actions

To support this we should expect to provide students with an eportfolio strategy that addresses the following four key points.

promoting reflection
Fundamental to any strategy's selection will be its ability to promote more than the collection of evidence but a reflection activity cycle (Richards) and host the lifelong and lifewide benefits that it brings (Moon, Richards). To realize this, students may need templates with guided focus questions that encourage them to inter relate concepts learned across their courses of study and to revist these themes throughout their undergrad studies.

flexibility vs structure
It should be flexibile enough to address changing student needs, levels of competency and choice. Undergraduates collecting evidence for the first time may require the highly structured environment as noted above(Stefani, 2005). Yet as students progress, they may wish to customize or even opt out of this structured environment to use the eportfolio strategy to meet other needs as they prepare to move on from their undergrad studies (Jafari).

Ease of Use
During their stay, students may differ widely in their interest in IT skills development. Note they may also need to communicate in both Arabic (L1) and English (L2) . Thus to support the portfolio strategy's development, it needs to facilitate the use of IT at these varying levels of interest and it must do so in two languages (Jafari) Thus the chosen eportfolio strategy needs to be easy enough to master and realizable in such a manner that it does not draw the student away from its prime purpose - to support documentation of evidence and to facilitate reflection.

collaboration
Per work by Vuorikari and Batson, the eportfolio strategy should facilitate interaction and sharing of knowledge with ones peers, advisors and instructors. To do so provides students with both immediate support and learning opportunites via the exchanges with peers. These have also been found to encourage the much sought after higher order learning, thinking and knowledge construction (Richards).

The current review of "off the shelf" eportfolio products leads me to conclude that few come close to addressing the mix of needs listed above. Many provide forms of structure but without much room for student customization at later stages of development (i.e. graduation). Little or no mention is also made of their ability to support the use of languages other than English.

In lieu of these shortcomings, I recommend investigating the use of the growing prevelance of web 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis and aggregators. All such utilities are readily available and often for free. Some like blogs inherently support reflection, others like wikis support easy editing, high degrees of customization and personalization. Yet can be readily supported via the use of the same strategies noted above. Via the use of aggregators, mashups of these various tools and their contents are also possible (Batson, 2008) thus making them a much more attractive proposition.

Sources

Batson, Trent (2008) ‘ePortfolios: Hot Once Again’, Campus Technology, [online] Available from: http://campustechnology.com/articles/60933/ (Accessed 26 September 2008).

Jafari, Ali (2004) ‘The “Sticky” ePortfolio System: Tackling Challenges and Identifying Attribute’, Educause Review, [online] Available from: http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/TheStickyePortfolioSystem/40485?time=1222282897 (Accessed 24 September 2008).

Moon, Jenny (2001) ‘PDP working paper 4: reflection in higher education learning’, document, [online] Available from: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/resources/resourcedatabase/id72_Reflection_in_Higher_Education_Learning.rtf (Accessed 2 October 2008).

Richards, Cameron (2005) ‘Activity-reflection e-portfolios: An approach to the problem of effectively integrating ICTs in teaching and learning’, Murdoch University - Teaching & Learning Forum 2005, [online] Available from: http://lsn.curtin.edu.au/tlf/tlf2005/refereed/richards.html (Accessed 5 October 2008).

Stefani, Lorraine (2005) ‘The Role of CPD in Teaching Quality Enhancement’, pdf, Auckland, New Zealand , [online] Available from: http://64.233.183.104/u/LearningTechnology?q=cache:YRY_ajTIbh0J:www.alt.ac.uk/docs/lorraine_stefani_paper.doc+Stefani&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&ie=UTF-8 (Accessed 30 September 2008).

Vuorikari , R. (2006) ‘‘National policies and case studies on the use of portfolios in teacher training' - European Schoolnet 2006’, [online] Available from: http://insight.eun.org/shared/data/insight/documents/e_portfolio_teacher_training_final_10_05.pdf (Accessed 28 September 2008).

Activity 8.3 - Review of a podcast

My review and notes on an H808 colleague's podcast.

Original name replaced with Sue to protect privacy

1.1 Mb - 6:25 min

1) Sound Quality?
Desired qualities? Low enough sampling rate that it is fast to download, and does not demand more storage space on a computer then is necessary. Yet the sampling rate must be high enough so that it supports clear message delivery without drawing attention to itself. 16000 mono with a 32 bit sampling rate would seem a well suited choice for this. Unfortunately it is mildly undermined by the constant presence of a background hum which appears to compromise low pitch sounds. I also noticed that the recording balance in Audacity read minu 0.3 off the zero mark. I am not clear as to the relevance of this but from my experience such a change is an anomoly. Speculation on my part but the background hum may have been caused by the presence of a magnetic field coming from another piece of electronic equipment nearby or improper grounding of the recording device.

2) Broadcast quality? - well constructed / intelligible
Desired qualities? Podcasts succeed when they have the listener's "buy in" from beginning to end. Part of realizing this requires organization and structure similar to what most of us expect from radio programming. Part of this requires information to be succinct, and well sequenced so that its purpose is clear and focussed on the topic at hand. Sue shows careful attention to sequencing her podcast. She begins by providing fairly detailed background information on her educational context and how it contributes to her choice of the highly relevant elearning topic of - reflective writing - as the focus of her podcast. This topic is then explored in the remaining five minutes of the podcast through seven carefully chosen and sequenced question and answer sessions. Each question is presented by a colleague and then fielded by Sue using information gleened from the topic of reflective practice in Units 2 and 3 of H808.

While the introduction provided interesting background information on how she came to choose the topic of reflective writing for her podcast, the delayed introduction of her target topic may undermine listener engagement. A possible alternative here might be to make such background information available in optional text form as a preamble to the podcast or retain it but with a detailed printed time sequence script with a breakdown of subtopics in the podcast. The later strategy affords listeners the option to include or not include this selection in their listening.

3) Suitability? does it meet the needs of the intended audience
Desired qualities? A clear understanding of who the target audience for the podcast is. With Sue's podcast, the Intended audience appears to be key stage 2 to 5 educators in the UK who may be already aware of reflective writing but may not be so familiar with either the rationale for it or how to best realize it... though it is not entirely clear if by reference to "student" she is referring to teachers as students or teachers who are to facilitate reflective writing with their students. Questions are well selected and well sequenced to ensure a basic understanding of reflective writing and its importance.

4) Length? is it of an appropriate length for the subject / intended audience
6:25 minutes in 16000 Hz mono
Desired qualities? Of sufficient length to cover the main points of the topic and yet still short enough and to the point so that once the listener has bought into the importance of the topic, they choose to listen to the podcast in its entirety. Sue's podcast is short but rich in content. The seven carefully chosen and sequenced question and answer sessions serve as mini chapters for quick reference and future access. Such a structure (with the possible exception of the extended introduction), supported a high level of engagement from me.

5) Interest?
Desired qualities? Very subjective aspect of the review. Highly dependent on many variables - how relevant the topic is, how it is organized, how it is supported, how creatively it is presented, how enthusiastic the speaker is. My personal interest was in hearing how a colleague engaged with the task and how successful she was in producing what is likely her first podcast - something I can declare to being highly successful.

6) Academic quality? is it based on research / argument / opinion
Desired qualities? This is also problematic to clarify. A lot of this will be determined by the interests and needs of the target audience... of which I'm not at all familiar with. However, from my perspective Sue's podcast presents a distillation of academic articles on the subject of reflective writing in the easier to digest, question and answer format.

7) Suggestions for improvement?
Ideas that occured to me? More choice in how to listen to the podcast. For example, the current set up demands listening to the whole podcast. However, with an index of topics and subtopics and their timings, the listener can choose to commit the amount of time they wish to listening. This gives adult learners who are often time starved and task oriented .. a chance to quickly assertain the importance / relevance of one resource amongst many to warrant investing the time required to listen to all or part of a podcast. Another idea? Much of the podcast sounded scripted - something unavoidable certainly when doing it the first time - but this might be minimized more through the use of note cards thus making the podcast sound more authentic and convincing. Much of the power of a podcast to engage the listener comes through the emotive qualities of the speaker as well as the actual content. Another idea? Invite the opinion of the questioner to share differing perspectives on the same questions and by doing so, invite the opinion of listeners.

8) Suggestions for use - if it were part of an information source for practitioners, what brief notes would you put on the site to place the podcast in context
Ideas that occured to me?
I might include a brief abstract with time lines and with specific reference to sections of the podcast to target specific topics that may be of interest to target listeners. I might note the background of the speaker and interviewer and include a bibliography of important sources that were to help realize the podcast. Ideally I would also encourage the setup of an online discussion board to invite listeners to question, discuss or share points related to the presentation so that engagement with the presentation is not left to just passive listening.

Activity 9.1. - Desktop research - blogging in education (report)

Sources

Buckingham, Jim ‘H808 - My notes’, blog, [online] Available from: http://buckinsand.blogspot.com/ (Accessed 5 January 2009).

Chandler, Jeff (2008) ‘WordPress Forum User Guide ’, Weblog Tools Collection, blog, [online] Available from: http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2008/12/24/wordpress-forum-user-guide/ (Accessed 5 January 2009).

Crawford, Justin ‘The Campus Press Blogs ’, Educause Learning Initiative, [online] Available from: http://www.educause.edu/ELI/ELIDiscoveryToolGuidetoBloggin/TheCampusPressBlogs/13563 (Accessed 5 January 2009).

Educause (n.d.) ‘What Faculty Want to Know ’, Educause Learning Initiative, [online] Available from: http://www.educause.edu/ELI/ELIDiscoveryToolGuidetoBloggin/WhatFacultyWanttoKnow/13566 (Accessed 5 January 2009).

GeoBlogs ‘Google Earth Users Guide Project’, blog, [online] Available from: http://googlearthusersguide.blogspot.com/ (Accessed 5 January 2009).

Peachey, Nik ‘Nik's Learning Technology Blog’, blog, [online] Available from: http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/ (Accessed 5 January 2009).

Stevens, Vance ‘adVancEducation’, blog, [online] Available from: http://advanceducation.blogspot.com/ (Accessed 5 January 2009).

Various ‘UMW Blogs’, blog, [online] Available from: http://umwblogs.org/ (Accessed 1 January 2009).

Various ‘Zotero: The Next-Generation Research Tool’, blog, [online] Available from: http://www.zotero.org/blog/ (Accessed 5 January 2009).

Weller, Martin (2008) ‘Blogging isn't about fame’, The Ed Techie, [online] Available from: http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/no_good_reason/2008/12/blogging-isnt-about-fame.html (Accessed 5 January 2009).

Categories are

1. subject domain / topic
2. professional reflections
3. personal reflections
4. student reflections
5. community building / sharing
6. utility - how to do

For each category, I provide

• a short description
• an example or two to help illustrate it
• comment on some of the main issues that arise from using blogs in this way

subject domain / topic

These are blogs that choose to focus on a specific subject domain in education or educational topic. There were many examples to choose from - mathematics, economics as well as English composition or literature. Most notable for me were these two and their work in promoting the critical use of technology in EFL instruction.

Nik Peachey's "Nik's Learning Technology Blog" and Vance Steven's ‘adVancEducation’, blog, both examine educational technology issues that they have personally encountered in their work context as EFL instructors in differing parts of the world. Peachey (Morocco) examines readily available specific technologies or web based tools and examines how how they might be used by educators. He also offers step by step guidelines on how to realize them. Notably absent? Comments from readers. Peachey's work tends to be more "how to" focussed.

Stevens (UAE) tends to place research work that was done to support various conference presentations, on his blog for broader review from readers. However, he also includes interesting annecdotal and reflective review of his experiences or encounters at these same conferences. Steven's work tends to examine an assortment of issues related to exploring the use of a given technology.

professional reflections

Here a professional uses their blog as a place to put out a plea for review, inviting open dialogue from a community of similar professionals to have their ideas tested and challenged.

Martin Weller's ‘Blogging isn't about fame’, demonstrates this sort of dialogue or engagement with a broader audience who take him to task on his earlier pronouncement on the value of technocrati ratings. He uses this post to clarify what he meant .. such ratings act as a "very rough proxy" of how well one is communicating one's ideas.

Stevens, Vance ‘adVancEducation’, blog, also invites the same. However, because the typical blog entry is fairly short (and typically needs to be to invite readership).. it appears to be somewhat problematic when attempting to discuss or present very detailed or complex issues

personal reflections

Finding these is problematic because they are often hidden from view. However, I know they exist because I and many of my colleagues have asked students to create them. I suspect that these make up the bulk of the many millions of blogs spoken of in literature on blogging. Here students can practice free writing, journalling and sharing their ideas with a select group of trusted friends or even instructors. Are they educational? They have the potential to be .. even if they invite personal reflection from the writer and are done outside of a structured formal education setting.

student reflections

Very similar to personal reflections however these tend to be more project or goal based. For example, all of the blogs for H808 are in most cases compiled based on the various activities assigned in the course. These tend to be more academic based reflections.

My own H808 - notes blog is but one example of this.

A few issues raised here? Educause writers note that some critiques argue instructors may be robbing the exercise of pleasure and purpose the moment they are made compulsory. Others express concerns about protecting student privacy , how to assess such developmental work, and where to host such services to protect students still in development.

community building / sharing

Blogs or often an aggregation of blogs and their ability to provide constantly dynamic content can be used as a form of community building or informing tool in an educational setting. More and more examples of this are emerging in college or university contexts and often employing communications students.

A blog set up by the University of Mary Washington is actually a collection of blogs made by various communities found within the broader university community. Justin Crawford's own reflective piece on the origins of just such a blog press and the unexpected problems it encountered are mentioned in yet another article.

utility - how to do

Many online user manuals that have been drawn up to support web based utilities, are blogs. This is especially useful when a product is either still evolving or experiencing "bugs". Updates can be noted and made immediately available to users via RSS feeds. The new users can also comment on these updates thus realizing feedback for program developers to help improve their product. In other words, the blog becomes a user manual that has been tried, tested and written by users.

Zotero is an open source product that used a blog to announce updates, solicit reviews of those updates, etc.

Another borderline example is the "Google Earth Users Guide Project". It borders on being a Geography related (topic based) blog but provides readers with ideas and instructions on ways in which Google Earth can be used in education.

Still another is Chandler, Jeff Chandler's work on a ‘WordPress Forum User Guide ’, and the reaction from end users to it.

Activity 8.4 - The influence of Audience

On the subject of appropriate communications, I feel that I have had a great deal of experience with this.

As part of work as a Art Museum Education Officer many years ago, my main challenge was to make a visit to the museum both engaging and educational for any and all visitors. Fundamental to realizing this meant introducing the concept of visual literacy (the language of art) and its application to interpreting all forms of art and ultimately, to the many different works of art on display in an art museum. I also needed to do this with a variety of audiences. The basic audiences were two - children and adults.

With both groups, I introduced the basic concepts and their emotive qualities. These are line, shape, colour and texture. I then collected a sampling of designed objects that were common to all to help illustrate these concepts. For line, it was the calligraphy used on a can of Coke and how it communicated movement and "life". For shape, it was a sports car (for boys) and a perfume bottle (for girls) and how their shape conveys a story - the car often communicates sleekness or speed, the perfume bottle communicates exoticness, exclusivity and luxury. For colour, it was detergent boxes compared with gourmet food packaging. Finally with texture, the biggest challenge, it was examining how food was presented (often juxtaposed with smooth surfaces to excentuate its texture and infer taste). As one might expect, the presentation concepts were the same for both groups however how they were presented to children was very different from that used with adults.

Curiously enough, the children usually had an easy time comprehending the emotive qualities of the basic elements of art (i.e. line, shape, colour and texture) and then feeling comfortable both applying them and sharing their findings with one another - the younger the children the better. However, for adults it was more difficult. It often meant communicating another message that went alongside this message. Typically, this involved discussing how our perceptions shape how we value and assign a worth to things - a cognitive rather than "emotive" approach. Over time I refined the presentation based upon a pattern of success that was realized through many dialogues with adults. Even amongst adults, I saw differences in how this was perceived. For example, with teachers who were familiar with arts education, this was easy. However, when speaking with school principals (headmasters) or school administrators or trustees (usually in that order) it became more difficult but not impossible.

What I have learned from this and attempt to apply to this day in my work as an education technologist, is the need to take the time to understand the values and perspective of the audience I am working with before making comment. I often test my assumptions about their needs by presenting them for review to make sure they are correct. Once done, this often invites a dialogue that reveals their needs, perspectives and values ... and hopefully their compatibility with my own.

The approach has served me well.

As a result, I am a lot more confident in how to proceed in the consultative role of an elearning practitioner. The advantage the Museum experience afforded me was to have essentially the message as a constant .. only the nature, needs and interests of the audiences changed. Today, in the world of education technology, while the audiences are still varied, the messages to convey appear to be just as varied.

Activity 8.2 - Knowledge Marketplace

Selling = my skills / abilities that may be of interest to my peers

• Selling - screen cam program use
• Selling - Zotero - referencing utility
• Selling - basic but often not used utilities in MS Word

Buying = skills / abilities that I hope to learn from my peers

• Buying - remote technical support strategies
• Buying - Twitter users?
• Buying - Web 2.0 applications for use in

Selling - screen cam program use

I have made extensive use of screen cam programs such as Captivate ($), Camtasia ($ .. now free), Camstudio (Open Source) and Jing (free) to support remote demonstration of computer based activities. Useful for "showing" clients how to set something up or how something is "supposed to" work on the computer AND for leveraging one's already very limited time.

For example, I received many requests from faculty asking how to realize a listing of student email addresses. I shared with them how to use the CONCATENATE function in MS Excel to do this. I used Jing to support it.

The same information can be placed on an institutional server or remotely (i.e. Jing) for future access.

Jim Buckingham -email jab226@student.open.ac.uk

Selling - Zotero - referencing utility

I have become a habitual user of Zotero (Open Source) as an alternative to EndNote or RefWorks. It is built into Firefox and with the help of a Plugin can be used to easily cite within MS Word. Have used it to create libraries plus related online notes for each Unit of H808.

If you aren't familiar with Zotero... here's a more detailed review (Open U - password protected) I put together back in October 2008 which aims to describe it and present a value proposition.

Jim Buckingham -email jab226@student.open.ac.uk

Selling - basic but often not used utilities in MS Word

Embedding sound files to create listening jigsaw activities, password protecting documents to secure individualized tests, and bookmarking to support digital lesson plans for students.

Jim Buckingham -email jab226@student.open.ac.uk

Buying - remote technical support strategies

Looking for others who have dealt with the problem of remote technical assistance and what other strategies they have found useful / effective. Another technical tool that I'm currently exploring is Yuuguu

Jim Buckingham -email jab226@student.open.ac.uk

Buying - Twitter users?

Currently used in our department (spread across 2 campuses) to quickly call for and share expertise amongst us. Interested in learning how others might be using Twitter as a communications tool in either an educational or business or support setting .. perhaps setting up a similar support arrangement amongst fellow H808s.

If you aren't familiar with Twitter .. here's a more detailed review (Open U - password protected) I put together back in October 2008 which aims to describe it and present a value proposition.

Jim Buckingham -email jab226@student.open.ac.uk

Buying - Web 2.0 applications for use in

Some of this I've already started to explore but would welcome learning from others who have experience with innovative applications of Web 2.0 tools in such subject areas as Visual Arts, Mathematics and Statistics.

Jim Buckingham -email jab226@student.open.ac.uk

Activity 8.1 - my log on producing a Podcast

software involved

• Audacity (audio editing)
• WinFF (file conversion)
• Juice (Podcast - feed subscription)
• Switchpod (Podcast - file host)
• Google System Blogspot (Code for embedding MP3 players into Blog post)
  

hardware involved

• Olympus DS30 digital recorder

Background

I've worked with Audacity a few times but nothing beyond a quick recording to share with students. As for podcasts, I love listening to them when I'm running on the treadmill or going for a walk on the Corniche but don't see them as useful for much else. I never saw much point in creating them on the belief that unless the emotive qualities of my message or that of others was as important to communicate as the content of the message.. then I could just as easily live without them. This exercise (to produce a podcast) invited a review of that.

Recording

Interesting to think about how to prepare (questions, digital recorder) and then find a stage for my selected "sages" to speak .. then approaching them in a non threatening way to encourage a positive response to my invitation. I was surprised to see the level of support and equally strong responses to the questions. I also recall a sense of excitement about not knowing exactly what to expect..

Converting

Once done with the recording, I discovered a number of obstacles. I was already familiar with the basic operation of Audacity so that was easy. However, I was less familar with the digital recorder that I am using. I was already confronted by one seemingly major issue .. the need to convert wma (the ONLY setting on the recorder) to wav or mp3 files. This meant hunting down a solution .. an wma to wav converter. In the end I selected WinFF because it was free, and looked dead easy to use.

Once converted from wma to wav.. I discovered that it didn't end there.. I then had to open again each file into Audacity for editing. A very time consuming task .. if I wanted to produce something that I felt was worth the time to listen to .

Editing sound files

A new set of challenges with editing. This meant sorting out problems with sampling rates, creating tracks, adding fade ins and fade outs and editing sections. A couple of hang ups of the software stressed to me the importance of frequent saving of files as Audacity projects so that previous editing work would not be lost if tech problems emerged.

I noted how putting together a presentation and making it coherent felt a lot like editing an essay. I likened it to cut and paste in a word processor .. yet with sound bites.

Then the whole thing needed to be saved with consideration given to both the file's size and format. I chose MP3 because its pretty much the norm these days. I also adjusted the sampling rate to 22050 mono because this would reduce the file size to speed up the download for others and yet still provide enough fidelity to be clear and easy to listen to.

Broadcasting

This proved remarkably easy to realize. As per Martin Weller's excellent instructions (compliments of H808) .. I began by registering on Switchpod, I then followed the "Creating your podcast" steps... five in all but only 3 were absolutely necessary.
In the end Switchpod provided both a link directly to the MP3 file
and a feed link for subscription to the podcast (in the event I might want to repeat the whole thing again).
http://www.switchpod.com/users/buck_in_sand/feed.xml
http://www.switchpod.com/p22376.html

However, when attempting to carry out an uploading of the podcast to the Open University podcast wiki page, I confronted the issue of just where to put it - H808 wiki podcast page (to which I appeared to be the first customer) and the Tutor Group Wiki (which seemed to be a collection point for a slew of podcasts). In the end, I attempted to post it in both places... I had success in one site .. but not in the other and for reasons that are still not clear to me I had problems with embedding the podcast into the wiki.

Embedding player into Blog

This proved interesting to sort out. No widget (as of yet) supported in Blogger but an assortment of embedded audio players are out there to use for free. I used Odeo and the following code

Replace
[MP3 file address]

Template
<embed src= "http://www.odeo.com/flash/audio_player_standard_black.swf" quality="high" width="300" height="52" allowscriptaccess="always" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" flashvars= "valid_sample_rate=true&external_url=[MP3 file address]" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed>

Activity 7.3 - Assessing PDP

Sources

Burgess, Hilary (n.d.) ‘Assessment: 2. Self and peer assessment’, The Higher Education Academy: Social Work and Social Policy (SWAP), [online] Available from: http://sorubank.ege.edu.tr/~bouo/DLUE/Chapter-08/Chapter-8-makaleler/Assessment%202_%20Self%20and%20peer%20assessment.htm (Accessed 4 December 2008).

Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto ‘Teaching and Learning by Health Professionals:
Practical Issues and Approaches - Sample Learning Contract’, Department of Family and Community Medicine - University of Toronto, [online] Available from: http://dfcm19.med.utoronto.ca/GradStudies/CourseMaterials/t&l/learning_contract1.htm (Accessed 4 December 2008).

Make a note of any of these approaches that you think could be applied to your own context of practice.

I'm in favour of the "learning contract" idea and see the list of competencies that we've come up with from Unit 6 becoming very handy for developing such a contract. To support this would require a fairly standard framework (Burgess) that invites the inclusion of still more frameworks / rubrics that the PLOT tool suggests.

This is very similar to a learning contract idea that I saw implemented in an experiential / alternative education program that I was involved in as a Group Leader some 20 years ago (Katimavik in Canada). Here the participants (a small group of 12 young adults) carried out some personal and group reflection exercises .. and then designed their own mission / values statement .. then personal and/or group objectives. They also knew what resources were available to them so they could map out how they might achieve these objectives (i.e. hiring a nutritionist to learn how to eat properly). Assessment? There wasn't any formal assessment..

As I see it, we've potentially got the same thing going on here. We've looked at the mission / values associated with being a learning technologist.. and are asked to review these to come up with a set of objectives that are aligned with that mission / those values and then plot how we might achieve them .. preferably with input and support from fellow group or team members. Assessment? Part of it might include how successfully aligned one's personal development objectives line up with professional and personal values and principles.

On a related note, I've only recently been advocating the inclusion of pdps at my work as a means to aligning faculty and staff development with the University's mission to promote teaching excellence. I see this being realized so that limited resources are aligned to address University directives but at the same time, the professional or personal objectives of an individual.

In effect, the University's governing board outlines its own strategic goals, then invites the various colleges to interpret those goals as well as their own to create department specific "strategic plans". These in turn could be used by faculty and staff to produce their own pdps that address their specific professional needs but align them once again with those of their department. These could then be included as part of one's annual performance review.

Activity 7.1 - reflections on professional values - where do they come from?

I'm sensing that the work of developing a code of ethics or principles for each profession as something that took time.. that it's really a profession's response to ensuring the public good is protected. The need is to meet minimum public expectations of a profession so that as a profession (and as a professional) they gain / maintain the trust and confidence of the public. They bolster their credibility and respect in the eyes of the public.

Keywords - trust / confidence
leading to
Keywords - credibility / respect

A little bit of speculation here but I don't imagine that such trust and confidence for current professions came over night. I imagine a series of occasions / events / even misfortunes where such trust or confidence may have been tested .. and the profession addressed these through the further refinement of their guiding principles and ethics. This was done as a means to protecting the "profession". In other words, defining the public good that each profession seeks to address is key to winning the trust and confidence of the public it seeks to serve. This becomes the means to defining these principles and ethics for each profession.

That may be easier to identify for an engineer or doctor, perhaps more challenging for an educator but I sense much more difficult for an elearning practitioner.. especially when there isn't much of a history to the "profession".

New questions emerge out of this...

What public interest or service is being addressed by elearning "professionals" that the public deems to be important .. that the public needs to be confident in leaving to elearning professionals to address?

• Perhaps efficient, effective, judicious use of technology in realizing learning outcomes .. cause for reflection.

What about defining the public? Is that public broadly defined or more focussed / specialized / specific?

• The public served may be educators, administrators, managers. What expertise are they seeking? .. cause for more reflection.

Activity 6.1 - eLearning as a profession

Sources

Higher Education Academy Professional Standards Consultation (n.d.) ‘Standards framework for teaching and supporting student learning in HE’, [online] Available from: http://www.alt.ac.uk/HEA_professional_standards_consultation_20051012.html (Accessed 16 November 2008).

ALT, (n.d.) ‘SECOND CONSULTATION ON THE PROPOSAL TO FORM
A LIFELONG LEARNING SECTOR SKILLS COUNCIL - Questionnaire’, [online] Available from: http://www.alt.ac.uk/docs/questionnaire_lluk_ALT.pdf (Accessed 16 November 2008).

What are the specifications for education and training couses aimed at elearning professionals?

Very difficult to find any definitions on this .. all of them seem to come out of the UK though by taking more time to mine the job descriptions for learning technologists in the US this might become easier to address.

From
Higher Education Academy Professional Standards Consultation
An elearning professional is someone who ...

• makes appropriate / judicious use of technology to realize learning outcomes
• has an indepth understanding of learning theory and its application to online learning design
• makes efforts to work with others to enhance and inform each other's practice, knowledge and experience
  

From Anonymous, (n.d.) ‘SECOND CONSULTATION ON THE PROPOSAL TO FORM A LIFELONG LEARNING SECTOR SKILLS COUNCIL - Questionnaire’

An elearning professional is someone who ..

• systematically applies a body of knowledge to the design, implementation and evaluation of learning resources
• uses principles of good learning theory, good instructional design and change management to support learning and provide learning resources
• is grounded in the use of technologies and their capabilities to support learning

Compare these specifications with your own education and training.

My own formal and informal education is a mix of visual arts training, museum management, adult education, english as a foreign language training and teaching and my current studies in the MA with the Open U. It's a very eclectic mix but I've also noticed that all of these educational / subject domains have been greatly affected by information technology. I have had to learn learning theory on at least three separate ocassions and maybe more - each from a different perspective (i.e. general, adult and online). Most of my own learning about effective use of technology has been informed by earlier courses in the Open U program. Much of the learning theory has been informed via reflection and integration into my own teaching practice, much of the appropriate selection of technology in education comes from direct experience and reflection on it. In almost all cases, the Open U program has served to more formally recognize my experience and efforts.

My formal qualifications .. constant theme?

Education. in environments that seem to promote or encourage innovation / dealing with change / promoting creativity .. and to do so under fairly close scrutiny by others (i.e. visual arts - public art displays, cultural sector - leveraging scarce time and money resources, adult education - targeted needs, efl - multi mode teaching leveraging scarce time and money resources to realize learning outcomes for students).

Compare this with the education and training of the H808 course team

I recognized that the team placed a certain amount of emphasis on experience with computer mediated communications and learning, the need to be current and connected with a community of practice, and the need to make one's work transparent (open to scrutiny and input from peers). I sense I've had two of the three drilled into me by work demands. The middle point is one that I grew to value while working in the cultural sector - the importance of networking with others to inform one's practice.

Other repeated themes? The need for ethics, standards to support one's work. The importance of striving for quality. The need to be part of a community of practice to constantly inform one's practice in a field whose context seems to be constantly changing.These sorts of values, curiously enough, were emparted in me via my work in alternative education while working in the cultural sector - where public scrutiny and validation were very important to ensuring "buy in".

Reflections - Activity 5.3 group work

From my vantage point, we have struggled to realize this task as a group.
Possible causes, we may have indirectly imposed a limitation on our selves by choosing to start and carry on discussions / exchanges via the FCC board. Curiously, a comfort level with using this, despite having had some exposure to the affordances of wikis and blogs; having them modelled to us in prior weeks. We overlooked choosing how to tackle the problem as a group;working out roles; breaking the task down into small tasks; not review and examine our strengths as members of the group; not coming on board at the same time .... all of it indicating to me that we did not reflect deeply enough on the most appropriate tool nor how to facilitate our task.. and thus undermined our own success or at least slowed it down dramatically.

My contribution to this? A dreadfully late move into 5.3 after spending too much time on 5.2. I felt a need to assert a role as a "Co-ordinator" / "Team

I'm in agreement with anything at this point that gives us some more structure .. such that it facilitates more collaboration. We have a lot of interesting and well developed ideas here but I find the current arrangement highly fragmented and difficult to follow (ie. not one or two but many discussion threads). I would really like to encourage that all of this information be put in one common place so that we can collate it, reflect on it - I would like to suggest the wiki that Nigel set up .. but I'm happy to have it anywhere. No ownership issues here, just acting as an elearning practitioner in identifying what in my opinion is the "best choice" of utility to realize the learning that we are being asked to do here ..

NOTE: I've become well aware about how this whole process is a lovely test of our ability to be elearning practitioners - using good practice in realizing this task involves

• understanding the limitations of online communications
• identifying the best of technology to realize learning
  
• identifying and applying the best strategies to overcome or manage limitations
  
• promoting collaboration / buy in amongst us
• realizing something meaningful / purposeful in the process

I'm even wondering if whatever principles we come up with can be tested against our success in realizing this activity. That would certainly point out their relevance.

Activity 2.5 - tools & systems for reflective activity

I've become a real convert to using "blogs" for cataloging my reflections. Much of this I'm pinning down to seeing others modeling this sort of thing for a while now (my list of blogs that I follow are in the right hand column of my H808 - my notes blog). This to my way of thinking (or reflecting?) is the way to go. I really like the ease at which I can add notes, edit the notes, invite comments on those notes, go back to reviewing them .. tagging them.. even commenting on my own notes .. to see my development of ideas and thoughts over time. This process is a continual one - a "reflective continuum". One recent discovery is how I can set up my email to type up a note as if it was a "blog" entry, send it and by doing so, have it immediately posted to the blog. No need to go to the blog and enter it.

As to creating multiple blogs (HLC) - .. I haven't thought to do that .. but wonder if I might get confused. Perhaps if the audience I'm looking to talk to expects a fairly predictable register I might think to do that . A register that is more formal than the one that might come out of the immediate response and informal manner of a "stream of consciousness" blog.. though I then have to wonder about the "integrity / authenticity" of that. However, its apparent to me that to have one blog , the tags and archiving features both become critical to sorting or finding things later one.

Another support resource that I'm finding really useful and would like to share, is "post its" or "turbo notes" (http://turbonote.com - there are slew of them). These are little virtual "stickems" or "epost-its". Their attraction is their immediacy. I can realize one in a "click" when I find myself reacting to something I've read or thought of, jotting down my reaction... and then reflecting on it. The immediacy is the critical thing.. and I can also keep the article that I'm reflecting on up on the screen at the same time. The notes themselves can also be collated, searched and sorted so I can quickly collect and collate them.

Julie mentioned the idea of using video or audio for recording reflections. Hmm... not sure where I stand on that. How easy is it to use? I can't help but think it would take a while for me to get over the "performance" nature of recording .. to make the reflections truly authentic .. and the added value of getting intonation or visual cues seems pretty small compared to the hassles of transferring, cataloguing etc. (though with YouTube I've only discovered recently just how easy it is to tag even videos - amazing).

Reflection - Eureka moment? Reactive vs proactive approaches to my work

Mentally welcoming change(?)
Two days ago, I was having a chat with a colleague who had ventured by my office on a small matter. She was asking how I was adjusting to my new position. I shared the usual comments about adjustment but I also told her how I felt marooned in working almost entirely at my desk researching, preparing learning materials, setting up workshops and creating follow up support utilities (ie. blogs, surveys, tipsheets, and wikis) . Yet I noted a feeling of detachment in working on serving the needs of my colleagues. She suggested that I just take a "walk" around the place and get to meet others. She also pointed out to me that to stay put was only reinforcing the idea of the CTL being unapproachable. It seemed so brutally obvious, so brutally true .. but it hadn't occured to me to get up and explore.

Making change happen (?)
So I decided to pursue the matter and set aside some time yesterday to try it. I really had no idea how it would go. To my surprise it took me over three hours to do what I anticipated might take only one maximum. I figured that it could have gone on longer if it hadn't been for a previously scheduled commitment.

As I went around soliciting questions / answering questions.. I became aware of two things. The obvious first one was how important it was to get out and interact - response from others in seeing me was generally very positive. It also became apparent just how many people really were not aware of the role our small department had in supporting them. The second thing I became aware of came about from responding to the many impromptu querries they came up with.

An Aspect of Professionalism revealled?
In answering these I became aware of the depth of my own understanding of elearning. Aligning learning needs with the affordances presented via various web tools. How I was also going to present a possible tool, strategy, or resource to help meet their needs. It occured to me more afterwards, how I was quickly drawing on my past experience with these resources, with these similar questions, with implementing them.. but as well, the reading that I've had on them to put together what I thought were solid, "professional responses". Professional aspect being .. negating self interest (i.e. suggesting more than one strategy or option to address a need), sharing what I knew and in a way that made the material approachable, and making my focus that of the client's needs, not my own. The whole exercise has made me more aware of how important it is to project that to others .. to build trust and confidence .. if one hopes to help someone make a move towards change.

I'm also looking back on what I was doing before .. I was taking a reactive position to faculty needs - limiting it to responding to email, telephone calls, and the rare face to face visit to the office. What I learned here is the equal need for proactivity, reaching out to solicit needs .. and probably just as important, establishing face to face contact to build a report so people get to know me, trust me, build a relationship of confidence in me. It's now got me reflecting on how this can be realized in an online environment (another point of reflection).

Still more questions. Now sold on the need for proactivity ..

• How can I find a balance between the reactive approach thrust upon me each day and the proactive approach that I now know is so useful and important to my work?
• How can I manage to lessen the reactivity side .. and maximize the proactive?
• Am I raising expectations amongst those I met that I can be counted on to address any of their ICT integration needs or issues in the future?
  
• Can I anticipate a need to somehow manage these expectations? Do I need to worry about managing expectations right now?

Activity 2.4 - Criteria for reflective writing

Readings
Moon (2001)
Richards (2005)

Advice to students on good reflective writing.

You need to understand what reflection is first, what its importance is to helping you learn. You likely already do it in a "non academic" common sense way , to think about something in more detail but often in a free thought or unstructured way (i.e. without a specific purpose or reason to do so) (Moon, 2001).

However we want you to practice more academic based reflection. Why? Academic based reflection is more guided, more purposeful. Reflection here is seen as realizing a deeper understanding of things, to connect that understanding with other things you know or to even challenge what you may already know. It often involves a critical evaluation of what you know to come up with more "sound", more "grounded, perhaps more confident judgements (Habermas) of things you have experienced and have come to "know". The alternative is to simply understand things in a simple, unconnected, isolated manner (Moon - surface learning). It can be seen not as a static "one off" process but part of a cycle featuring action then thought; a process of acting then refining your understanding of what it is you've done .. to then possibly repeat that action but with adjustments made that are based on your new understanding of the action (Kolb - experiential learning) . That process can be repeated to become an "activity reflection" cycle (Richards) directed to improving your understanding of things which in turn help move you closer to realizing a desired goal, overcoming an obstacle or solving a problem.

Put into the context of reflective writing, writing takes on new meaning. Writing means summarizing something. The content for that summary might be a thought, theory, experience or feeling. The act of summarizing invites you to interpret and personalize this content further. Reflecting on this writing invites you to relate these ideas to previous experiences to further personalize them or give them more meaning. You may find yourself going back to the same writing again and again, each time reviewing and refining it because your ideas have been changed by new experiences or ideas that impact on your understanding of the initial idea. These may test or challenge your earlier views causing a complete rewrite of them or they may invite you to refine the wording of them still more. Over time, you realize a deeper understanding of your initial idea. All of the writing, reviewing and editing also becomes a record of something potentially more useful to you - a deeper understanding of your learning processes.

This reflective writing process can be broadened through the inclusion of your peers. Their review or questioning of your work can also draw your attention to common themes or contradictions in your ideas. These too can cause you to clarify or refine your understanding of ideas.

Activity 2.3. - Reflection & learning

Posting
Karen J.Ogilvie, Reflection - Karen's first thoughts, Sun Sept 28 5:20 pm

Readings
Moon, Jenny (2001)
H808, Assignment guide


My read of the H808 Course Guide and Assignment guide is that the reflective work that we do in the form of "core activities" will become important evidence to support our case for how we have realized "professional" or "personal" development via H808.

The strength of these "core activities" and their reflections will in many ways determine the strength of the work we do later on with the TMAs. I also see how each one of those reflection pieces is really a snap shot of my understanding of a concept at a certain point of time in the course. As we proceed further into the course, I'm anticipating the need to revisit these, to review / edit / revise them based on still more reflection.. I also anticipate discovering how my depth of understanding on certain issues / definitions has changed over time... and that this becomes an important objective of the course.

In theory, the contents and organization of the eportfolio should be a byproduct of these deep reflections. To draw from Schon, I'm also expecting to experience a form of "reflection in action" or "reflection on action" (depending on the "time constraints" I'm under) as we move to realizing an eportfolio. (H808 - Assignment guide - page 3 .. In your reflective commentaries your tutor will be looking for evidences that you have ...."

In reference to Moon, I can already see that reflection is going to occur through the active use of the "reflective continuum". That reflection needs to be academic rather than "common sense" in approach, meaning that we need to strive to put what we read/learn via the material into a clear personal context to improve the depth of understanding of it. The activities that direct us to deeper reflection include summarizing what we've read, integrating it with our personal situations or experiences (i.e. experiences, beliefs, etc.) then testing it with others. I can see myself using the framework developed by Hatton & Smith (Moon) as another means to realizing this depth.

Is the notion that some forms of reflection are better suited to some disciplines relevant to my own subject area or practice?
Yes.. First of I'm conscious of the need to reflect. How it impacts on my own learning. I see it as critical to improving the effectiveness of what I do. It typically takes on some urgency when something doesn't go as planned or was a flop. I then often review assumptions that I made in planning something. It could be about my learners, the context .. but I try to focus on the things that I have control over .. which can be somewhat defeating. I have to remind myself to also examine outside factors that may have contributed to a problem. The biggest problem I encounter with realizing reflection .. is making time to consciously do it and then the issue is to what degree have I done it - or to what depth that I can rely upon it or feel confident about acting upon it.

Choice of other media for reflective activity?
I real find summarizing and writing an ideal reflective activity .. and it's greatly facilitated by word processing. Blogs seem a good place to collect and collate the ideas too, especially for future review and reflection. I already find myself making "comments" to myself.. (which seems a bit odd - sort of like "talking" to yourself asynchronously). I've had experience with podcasting but unless I'd want to review how I said things (i.e. register cues) I can't imagine that it would add much of any value to my reflective process. If anything, I currently see their production and assembly even detracting from realizing meaningful reflection.

Though this last point is being challenged by Karen's note about how medical students she works with are producing video as a reflective activity. Topics include "how well they work with people, how they communicate to ultimately make descisions". How this same video is shared with peers to get feedback on "how well they carried out the task".

I asked ...

Curious? Is this a video that they take of themselves or is it a video that they have arranged be taken of themselves where they do a "voice over" reflective piece on afterwards? What value do you and the students "see" in having the video over writing things down in a journal. Do they not get bogged down with producing it .. or knowing that their peers will "see" them? Do the visual cues (body language) cloud the ability to review the reflection or do they act as sort of a "truth litmus" test for peers to judge and mention in their feedback? Tons of questions here. Sorry.

Activity 1.4 Drivers Template - Reflections on the process

Making Assumptions about my colleagues

I realized how I was immediately forced to make assumptions about my colleagues largely because I had very very little information about them .. what their abilities are, their experiences are, their attitudes towards ICT and elearning are. This was in the context of being asked to work with them online to realize a common task (which I wasn't quite sure if I understood the same way they did) and then to do so under time constraints (access to communication tools, differing time zones, differing work / domestic routines) . Problem is further compounded by the absence of immediate feedback that one would typically have access to when working in groups and making decisions in a face to face situation.

Importance of Introductions

As a result, the introductions posted earlier actually took on more importance for me. I went back to them to try to get a glimpse into who my colleagues were and how much they might know about ICT in general or specifically in this case, wikis.

Making Decisions

Extremely difficult to do .. impossible to arrive at consensus (at least on this occasion). Decisions on what to do, in what time frame, what communications tools to use, very little structure or framework in place to realistically arrive at a decision... etc. etc.
All were being made .. but I was very conscious of the need to make such decisions in such a way that they would hopefully realize buy in by my colleagues .

Assuming a leadership role

In the absence of any movement on the task, at least by a point when I expected something to have been initiated, I found myself in an odd position. I felt the need to lead on the task (i.e. setting up a wiki) . Even more odd was to be asserting not one decision as it turned out but a series of decisions without any sort of consensus .. yet time was moving on. It also made me conscious of the need (perhaps even a feeling of guilt) to share my rationale for making such a decision with my colleagues .. on the belief that to do so.. supported "buy in" by them .. to not do so projected a certain "arrogance" which isn't who I think I am. Certainly whatever I did choose to do .. needed to be done with what I now look back on as a set of guiding ethics - fairness, inclusion and respect for my cohorts - hopefully common to them and appreciated by them. This led to the set up of a thread on the wiki entitled "A confessional - why Wetpaint for a wiki?"

Awareness of the need to support

Once the series of decisions was made (i.e. setting up a wiki but not on the Open U system).. I found myself assuming more responsibility for it.. a need to set up support. Even the decision to use Wetpaint was founded on the belief that it would do a better job of facilitating collaboration and discussion amongst colleagues then the Open U wiki. That meant posting links to the wiki on the FC system ..posting a rationale for a possible next move, etc. Expecting a possible challenge from Anne Bradbury. Looking for and carefully observing input from my colleagues Peter and Lisa to see if I was on the right path. Producing new pages. Posting notes on the "utility" to be found on the Wetpaint wiki.

Still a sense that this could be improved upon..

Perhaps by reading the reflections of other members of my cohort .. I'll learn more about the effectiveness of this process and how it could be improved. I have realized for awhile now .. likely through my experience over the years .. the value of "feedback loops" and the need to incorporate them into any decisions on online efforts if I want to ensure their success. The number, type, frequency and immediacy of those responses by my colleagues served as valuable feedback on my decision making in the past.. and I expect that will continue into the future of this task.

Activity 1.1 - Introductory audio

How do you feel about the label - elearning professional?

About the label - elearning professional - I'm not clear about what it really means and I don't get much help from the prodcast either. It just gives rise to more questions. Kirkup comes the closest to how I would expect the term professional to be used. One's actions are grounded by ethical standards, but then on top of these are a set of values that have been drawn up by the profession itself, a code of practice collectively determined by the professionals (often via an association). They also strive to regulate themselves .. awarding professional credentials to those who meet a set of standards (predictably) determined by other "elders"(more experienced, learned professionals?) and recognizing those who go on to promote further progress in the profession..(again often via some sort of association).

But then Robin Goodfellow's small "p" vs big "P" definitions of professionalism and even more so Jones comment on how the term professional has been redefined today to mean something again quite different throw a wrench into all of this. Today's "modern" professonal or what sounds to me more like a "semi" professional is much less self regulated and instead more directed by those who "manage" them. I've only just recently been hired as an Educational Support Specialist and see this tension confronting me front and center - trying to bring a professional point of view (gleened from my MAODE studies) to addressing needs and issues where I work.. yet at the same time I'm directed by management to follow a very detailed agenda and sometimes one that even spells out what resources are to be used to realize it. In some ways I feel I'm being asked to assume the role of an elearning professional when convenient... then an elearning technician when convenient. "Quasi professional"?