Reflections - Activity 9.1. - Desktop research

Sources

Edublogs (n.d.) ‘Edublogs - teacher and student blogs’, [online] Available from: http://edublogs.org/ (Accessed 4 January 2009).

Online Education Database (2006) ‘Top 100 Education Blogs | OEDb’, [online] Available from: http://oedb.org/library/features/top-100-education-blogs (Accessed 4 January 2009).

Technorati (n.d.) ‘education: Blogs, Photos, Videos and more on Technorati’, [online] Available from: http://technorati.com/blogs/tag/education (Accessed 4 January 2009).

This has been no small task.

I have spent over 7 hours reviewing blogs in education - never thought I could do it but I did. Over that time, one thing has become blatantly apparent - blogs are being used for any subject, topic, issue imaginable thus any attempt to categorize them at all seems an exercise in futility. The fact that technocrati tagged over 35,000 blogs about education, and edublogs ,which specializes in providing blogs for educators, notes how they now support over 260,000 blogs means that even if I limit my review to the results of their screening, my attempts again seem futile. The OEDb vainly attempts to pare these down to a top 100 using 10 categories - not at all evenly divided I might add nor is there any hint about how they themselves have gone about selecting such sites.

Note too the difficulty in defining the term - "range of blog use in education". Education can be formal or informal. Education in the broadest sense, can take place almost anyplace and anytime. Even if we pare this down to formal education, we still are dealing with every topic and subtopic found in education being potentially dealt with in a blog. However, in an attempt to not write off the exercise entirely, I did begin to reflect on how I may have spent more time reviewing certain blogs then others. How I may have begun to see patterns emerge in reviewing and comparing various blogs - their content, their writing style, and their appearance. Thus my attempts to categorize blogs are predictably going to display a bias towards those I gravitated towards. Blogs are defined here as journals written usually (but as I have come to learn not always) by one author. I tended to focus on blogs about "blogs" and how they could be used in education.

Reflections on TMA 2

I spent a wack of time on Part 2 ... integrating my understanding of our work in Acitivity 5.2 with the concepts of good practice in elearning.. and applying reflection to unearth them. An excellent assignment in my view because of how it caused me to really reflect on the level and quality of my interaction in the assignment. Perhaps pinpointing strengths and weaknesses in my reponses (or non responses) at various stages within .. and challenging my near knee jerk reaction to cry "foul" for the absence of a more comprehensive framework to guide the activity.

Key observation?

It must be a real difficult balancing act for an elearning course designer to realize a properly scaffolded assignment. The balance is between not providing too much structure so as to avoid guiding learners in a prescriptive fashion.. and not providing enough structure so as to minimize student guess work as to the purpose of the project assigned.

What I did with the reflective component in TMA 1. I did with the essay component of TMA 2. I made the mistake of underestimating the demands of the question ... Great question .. but not enough time for me to "weave" the assortment of themes the activity asked us to review - values, good practice, pd issues, pd strategies, evidence selection, reflection, collaboration, assessment, support tools .... to then reflect upon their relevance in my own context (my choice of contexts to use) to realize a comprehensive and well organized enough answer.

Key observation?

Caused me to conclude the need to have a comprehensive professional development plan that is self directed, "do"able and supported by solid evidence.... and to execute it to support other possibilites. I am keen to realize some sort of post H808 learning community to realize some sort of online community that supports peer review / collaboration. I think I may even be a candidate for the CMALT accreditation some time down the road..

Lessons learned from the TMA this time? Start even earlier with the ECA. Perhaps getting both the reflective component and eportfolio component behind me so that I can concentrate on the final essay.

Activity 7.2 - relevance to TMA2 Part 1?

Sources

Cheer, Peter (2008) ‘core activity 7.3’, H808 - aeb324 Unit 7, [online] Available from: fcp://@oufcnt1.open.ac.uk,%231004824/H808%20aeb324%20Self%20ass/%23162285826 (Accessed 6 December 2008).

Consider how these notes and FCC messages could be incorporated into TMA2 part 1

Areas where this info might be relevant?

Ways of evidencing my pdp development ...

• connecting with others with similar job title and responsibilities
• sharing personal objectives, evidence, competency frameworks, reflections

Ways of recording & evaluating development

• use of a rubric and then links to evidence to support attainment / progress towards an objective on the rubric

Knowing the different roles that elearning professionals play in this context

• need to identify others who share a similar role or at least others who understand the importance and complexity of the role (Peter Cheer)
  

Peter's idea of blind exchanges within a large organization or association to realize peer reviews of one's pdp efforts .... the advantage being that both parties have a stake in realizing detailed review and feedback .. and thus there's likely to be a higher participation rate.

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.

Reflections - Activity 6.3 - what does a learning technologist do?

Sources

Lisewski, Bernard and Joyce, Paul (n.d.) ‘Examining the five-stage e-moderating model:
Designed and emergent practice in the learning technology profession’, [online] Available from: http://learn.open.ac.uk/mod/resourcepage/view.php?id=90970&direct=1 (Accessed 24 November 2008).

Oliver, Martin (2002) ‘What do Learning Technologists do?’, Innovations in Education and Teaching International , 30(4), pp. 245-252.

What do learning technologists do?
I've only been assuming this postion for a few months now and I can really relate to both the Oliver and Lisewski articles.

Yes... I see a big part of my job as a Education Technology Specialist (i.e. Learning Technologist) is having a certain amount of autonomy in how I interact with "clients", yet little if any authority to direct change, instead its a matter of presenting experiences, ideas and suggestions (expertise) to "guide" a "client" to another way to realize their instructional objectives. They typically seek me out formally (via email requesting an appointment) or informally (over lunch or a chat in the hall). Yet critical to it is fostering a non threatening relationship with potential "clients" so that they feel comfortable about discussing such things. It sounds curiously similar to a relationship that you might find between a patient and a therapist, where there's a need for "confidentiality", and the building of "trust" or building a non threatening, safe environment for open dialogue because in many cases, the potential client feels insecure about raising the issue. They often apologetically present themseleves as unfamiliar with something, feeling vulnerable in doing so, so that they realize they need to learn more, that they are depending on me for guidance.. yet ultimately the final decision on "if" they will move forward rests with them.

Curiously enough, I've never seen such a "soft skill" presented in any LT job description. While the expertise, experience and rhetorical discourse are important, I've discovered just how critical nurturing this sort of relationship is to realizing the next step - being "invited" to enter into such a dialogue and then present one's expertise or opinions to help inform opinion. Thus the point made about "investing considerable time in building goodwill and strong collaborations across the institution" (Oliver p 249)

I'm equally curious about how many others in the cohort share this observation.

I also see a strong need to be challenging things ... even those presented by my colleagues in the department. They have been tempting me to use "off the shelf" solutions (with best of intentions I might add) .. yet I've resisted on the very grounds mentioned by Lisewski - the need for them to be challenged as to their relevance to our context. At issue here, is the use of screen cams from Atomic Learning and my insistence on the need to use self authored screen cams using Jing. This on the grounds that Jing produced resources are easy to produce, easier to access and invite greater familiarity and thus more built in support for our end users - namely faculty. Atomic Learning videos are more difficult to get to (require password and then navigation to a set example), and are not context specific .. thus requiring the "target learner" to build the relevance and context themselves .... to understand the purpose of the support resource.

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.

Reflections - Critical finding from Activity 5.3 readings

What did I glean from the articles?

A need to closely examine the roles and related competencies of an online instructor / elearning practitioner. This would lead to a better understanding of what an elearning practitioner does first.. in effect to learn from other practitioners (those more experienced) ... essentially learn from their own research / experience. Then incorporate that research / experience into my own reflections on my own practice ... to then inform my own practice. To me that may be one important and distinguishing characteristic that differentiates a practitioner from a professional - this connection with other practitioners.

That was a critical finding for me.

I've tended to go to research, perhaps to validate a specific project or approach .. rather than approach it from a much broader point of view. Perhaps such reading on a routine basis would build in me a better understanding of my roles and be incorporated into my practice as part of my practice rather than an "after the fact" add on.

Summary - Competences for Online Teaching: A Special Report

Source

Goodyear, P., Salmon, Gilly, Spector, M., Steeples, C. and Tickner, S. (2001) ‘Competencies for online teaching’, Educational Technology Research & Development , 49(1), pp. 65-72, [online] Available from: http://learn.open.ac.uk/mod/resourcepage/view.php?id=90970 (Accessed 11 November 2008).

Compared with Hillier, this piece provides a more systematic approach to identifying the different competencies of an online teacher. It starts by identifying the many roles an online teacher may be asked to assume. Then it looks at the skill set / tasks required to carry out these roles to produce a comprehensive "competencies" list for an online teacher.

Roles involved in online teaching

• researcher
• assessor
• adviser
• process facilitator
• content facilitator
• technologist
• designer
• manager / administrator

Under one of these roles .... we might have "tasks" listed

• process facilitator
• welcoming
  
• establishing ground rules
  
• creating a community
  
• managing communications
  
• modelling social behaviour
  
• establishing own identity
  

One could mine these tasks to generate a list of competencies

• challenge participants but support them individually and as a group
• tolerate ambiguity when working with individuals and groups
• etc.
  

Noted by Goodyear was how it was implied in the final lists an educational philosophy . One valuing

• democratization of learning
• inclussiveness
• increasing student responsibility for learning

-------------------------
No mention of the word excellence... but definitely inferring the need for someone who aspires to becoming an online teacher or who already calls themselves one - to reflect on how well they feelthey understand and have mastered these many competencies. Produce evidence to support their development in these area

I can also well imagine for those who came up with the lists, that the task would have been an equally demanding one - demanding a great deal of reflection on one's practice.

Summary - Promoting excellence in HE - Hillier article

Source

Hillier, Yvonne (n.d.) ‘The quest for competence, good practice and excellence’, The Higher Education Academy, [online] Available from: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/resources/resourcedatabase/id494_quest_for_competence.pdf (Accessed 11 November 2008).

Attempts made to identify qualities of excellence. To formally recognize it and in doing so promote good practices to realizing it.
-----------------------------

NTFS (National teaching Fellowship Scheme - UK
criteria for rating submissions for teaching excellence

• ability to inspire students
• ability to inspire colleagues
• ability to inspire broader community
• enable Ss to achieve learning outcomes
• demonstrate reflective practice in their teaching
• innovation
• promotion
• presentation
• sharing and promoting good practice

-----------------------------
Research on the subject by Vielba and Hillier, 2000.
Administrators focussed on organizational qualities

• planning
• resources
• explicitly stated outcomes

Teachers and students focussed on affective / personal qualities

• enthusiasm
• creativity
• interpersonal skills

Students noted the importance of "communication skills"

------------------------------

So using criteria for judging excellence is dead.. long live the role of research and reflection in promoting excellence (?)

That's sort of what I'm left with here after reading the Hillier article. So there is not true set of criteria to realize what is deemed to be "excellence" in teaching. Rather we know what is needed to encourage personal and professional development to make anyone a better educator - namely "research" to inform "reflection on our practices" and this to inform our "professional practice".

Seems to support my earlier opinion about using the term "expert" - calling myself an expert on anything. I am more comfortable declaring myself someone who is a reflective practitioner thus continually under development. The alternative? To stay the same .... to not grow .. to fossilize.

Reflections - Activity 5.2 Case studies from the Carnegie & Hewlett Foundations

(prior to going to the FCC message board)

Reflections on my review of case studies

Key points that need to be present for a case study / research study to be convincing for me

• relevance of the topic to myself and others
• transferability of the ideas to other contexts(hopefully including my own)
  
• clarity of explanation to allow
• its benefits to be understood
  
• the study to be repeated
• the attractiveness of the benefits (learning / teaching)
• the ease at which it can be repeated
• its underlying educational philosophy is either stated directly or clearly inferred
• flexible .. addresses a number of needs / interests

Possible framework for a good poster?

• context is clearly stated
• purpose / need / issue stated clearly
• principle of the project outlined
• resources required for the project
• methods clearly outlined.. and benefits resulting from them outlined
  

Reflections - Unit 5 (opening section)

This caught my eye in the opening of Unit 5 .

"two factors that determine the effectiveness of a professional in any area of occupation are

• the quality of their sources of information - timeliness, pertinence, reliability
• their ability to apply intelligence to that information (determine what is relevant in each information source, and how best to make use of it)

Paul Lefrere & Robin Goodfellow

Thinking immediately of my work in the ELC a few years back when I used electronic surveys to identify faculty needs but I also made a point of reviewing and assessing the traditional delivery mode for workshops - face to face - largely on a hunch that the current strategy wasn't working. Identified the need for a rethink .. because attendance at past workshops was consistently poor .. yet the same needs were still being expressed in the surveys. This told me that there was a crying need for more flexibility to complement the faculty situation / environment.

I entertained the possibility of capitalizing on the constant availability of the network .. to devise a new strategy that was less proximity dependent (the need for a scheduled time and place to present IT support workshops). That led to the development of a four prong strategy consisting of tipsheets, screen cams, one to one tutoring.. all designed to complement the traditional "face to face" strategy.

The result? Subsequent online surveys noted tipsheets and screen cams as number one support method ... while face to face was still seen as highly desireable.. yet attendance remained abysmal (what people were voting for in a survey, they weren't prepared to vote for with their "feet").

What does it point out to me now .. the importance of challenging assumptions, making decisions when possible based upon data. The data is powerful for informing one's decisions and supporting their close scrutiny by others. However.. the data doesn't offer all the answers .. I realize more clearly now the need to review them in their context. For example, if I was to go on the choices made in the survey, we would still be using only the "face to face" strategy.

Reflections - TMA 1 time - not "tea time"

TMA 1 time - not "tea time"

Sources

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).

Smith, Mark (1996) ‘reflection: What constitutes reflection - and what significance does it have for educators? The contributions of Dewey, Schon and Boud et al. assessed’, The Encyclopedia of Informal Education, [online] Available from: http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-reflect.htm (Accessed 2 October 2008).

As much as I struggled with TMA 1, I did find it a great exercise because I also found it a valuable learning experience. Part 1 - the academic essay - forced me (perhaps directed me is a better term) to "weave" the many concepts from Units 1 thorugh 4 (pdp, eportfolios, reflection) together in a coherent form that could be applied to a real life situation. An exercise in using the discourse of the topic, and personal engagement with these concepts to realize a possible practical application of them.

To my surprise, Part 2 - the reflective piece - proved to be the more challenging of the two. I think I made an assumption that this could be polished off quite easily and quickly.. but the moment I began to write things down, the process of reflecting on what had been learned already and how it might have impacted on my own personal development proved to be quite a mountain to climb. I started by confronting a bit of personal resistance to what was being asked - to identify what has really changed in my personal development after what still seems a remarkably short period of time (about 8 weeks). This seemed a tad bit over the top. I also confronted the personal need for quiet time to realize reflection (something that Moon noted - a part about slowing down activity) and yet was confronted by a deadline. Not a good mix - deadlines and personal reflection. Not a good mix at all.

It did dawn on me that I was practicing a reflective continuum here - reflecting on earlier reflections to see how things might have changed. How did I feel about the comments I made only a few weeks or even days ago?

What did I do to support this? I went back to my notes from readings on Richards and Moon to clarify for myself what constitutes "deep" reflection, even resorted to taking these notes, and putting them in front of me as a guide on how to attack the question. I've been pleasantly surprised by the outcome .. though I have to admit, I still have to plead some ignorance on how one can assess this sort of thing. The doubting Dewey mentions that is required to trigger reflection is certainly still there (Smith).

Reflection - professional isolation - confronting it

I've set to work today on addressing a few things that I've identified as being an issue a few days ago - most notable being "professional isolation".

Really became conscious of my own "professional isolation" again yesterday when I was at a conference (Google Sketchup - Dxb). Met some other eLearning practitioners in the process. One of them enquired about whether I knew anyone who could work as an elearning trainer. While I didn't have any luck in suggesting anyone to him, I did take the occasion to note the absence of opportunities to network with others in the area and how such querries were just the kind of thing that a network might help support / address. A few others also present at the time, concurred so I suggested that perhaps we should set up something online. We exchanged cards.

Today, as a follow up to that, I've been looking to find other online eLearning Professional communities to either learn what they've been doing to support one another or even joining them. So so many yet most of them seem based in any part of the world except here. Now I have to explore this further to see if in fact this is the case. However, it's pointing out the need to realize this here. I guess I'm envisioning an online community of elearning practitioners who are familiar with the issues that we address here in the Middle East.

Refection - Activity 4.1 - creating multimedia components

This Unit got under my skin a bit ... so I let loose on the FCC message board with the following to my group. It started out for me as a pretty simple rant "Multimedia beware" ... then grew into a bit of a reflection piece for me. A confrontation with myself between the academic reasons for using multimedia and the real "fears" or "concerns" for perhaps avoiding them.

_____________

I'm going to go "out on a limb" here and say that I'd like to challenge the use of multimedia. I also want to say that I'm even a bit disappointed by the resources that I've read in Unit 4.1. I say this because I haven't read anything on the appropriate selection of multimedia (perhaps I've missed something on the topic and I'd love to read about it if its there - do tell) From my experience the use of voice and video really only serve a purpose if the affective qualities that they communicate are important to supporting / enhancing the message or are part of the message (ie.. emotion, enthusiasm, body language, visual cues etc.) If these elements are not seen as important..or are not thought of carefully they can even become a distraction from the message or undermine the message. I've seen my share of poorly made TV shows (available on almost 90% of the channels available to us in the UAE) that have only served to reinforce the point.

Now I realize that the opposite can be said about email or text messaging .. and people sometimes go to great lengths to add that emotional quality via "emoticons". I'd argue that email or text messaging works great until there is a need to convey emotion .. to communicate the message with nuances.. or to minimize the risk of an email message sounding too "turse" or "harsh". Then I might consider using audio or video to communicate my message.

This then begs the question. When might I want to use multimedia as part of an eportfolio? Are there situations when I might want to use audio or video? I've been reflecting on this .. and have managed to come up with the following. By "honestly" conveying my message through multimedia.. by "honestly" conveying my message along with all of its non verbal cues .. I may be granting more authenticity to my presentation. I stressed the word "honestly" because I can't help but think that if it isn't done honestly .. then its likely scripted instead .. then the authenticity of the message "goes out the window" - the reader / viewer may not buy it.

Then there's the other side of the issue. Even if I'm trying to be honest and sincere, I know that I'm confronting my own sorted of "performance" anxiety - asking myself all sorts of questions.

• "How did I come across?"
• "Should I repeat this?"
• "I didn't like that part".
• "Let's do it over again".

So while it can seem fun to some.. it can also be work too - creating a slew of anxieties in my quest to realize some sort of "carefully crafted identity".

I guess what I'm saying here is that I'm incredibly conscious of these affective qualities and perhaps how difficult it can be to either confront them (to make the choice to do them), surrender to them (accept the fact that any such performance will not be perfect) or control them (trying to shape the final product through scripting or rehearsing).

Leading me to conclude, how I confront the use of multimedia and when I use it, is always likely to be a display of not only my technical expertise / skill in using them but my level of confidence in confronting how and when I think I can use them effectively.

Reflection - Activity 3.1. My strengths & weaknesses

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.

Reflection - Activity 3.1 My own template for PDP

By completing the pdp grid, I became really aware of the challenges of doing a deep review of my current job. In the process I've got a more intimate knowledge of the demands and skills required of me, but equally important, the expectations others may have of me.

I was very aware of a sort of distillation process taking place. I started with my job description. This seemed only logical to me because the job is relatively new for me. I set to work at mining it for a list of skills attitudes and needs ... which led to monster list (about 60 in all). That raised concerns about what sort of an animal I might be realizing for myself - one that could be overwhelming and unmanageable for the purposes of the course. .. so I sought out some objectivity. Threw a bit of a plea to Anne. She provided some valuable feedback on my concerns and my work so far - essentially offering guidance on how I might take what I had already and move forward with it. I did by somehow paring the many items down to a manageable number via typing and sorting them in Excel, then rewriting them so they were general enough, yet still meaningful.

Via the process, came a bit of a revelation on just how much of the job really involves "people skills" rather than "tech or research skills".Perhaps it shouldn't be so surprising. I've realized that a good portion of my work has to do with leading or encouraging and modelling how to realize change. I'm also realizing the importance of making that process so transparent that its open to scrutiny by others. I think that is a personal value that was there before but I'm now seeing how important it is in a professional context.

I also had some concerns about my focus just on my work and how this might marginalise any opportunity to incorporate personal development. However, I'm now seeing how almost all of these general categories that I've come up with can be equally important in promoting that personal development as well.

Now off to producing my "personal development" objectives.

Activity 3.3 Understanding eportfolio software (preview)

I'm speculating before I begin this review that the following features will be most important to me or to my hypothetical students..

1) ease of use
It has to be easy enough to learn. That can be achieved with built in support or readily available JIT tutorials.

2) flexibility yet structure
Dichotomy here, one wants flexibility yet there is a certain amount of structure needed, certainly for an absolute beginner who may need a set of guided questions. But a more experienced user may opt to drop this structure in favour of getting more freedom to design as they see fit.

3) interoperability / portability
If I'm going to invest so much time and energy into something and over an extended period of time.. then I need to feel confident that whatever I'm using will be transferable to another system.

4) support / modelling of benefits
For anyone just starting on this trek to build an eportfolio, their ability to "see" the benefits of an eportfolio and how those benefits can be easily realized is fundamental to realizing "buying in" ... That equates to providing clear models / examples and constantly available support. That support can come in many forms - interaction / collaboration with ones peers, and/or IT support agents.

Reflection - PDP needs analysis proves to be difficult

PDP needs analysis proved to be more difficult than I had imagined it might be. I found myself swimming in too much choice. I'm leaning towards making the main focus of it my new job. I sense that this would be a natural focus for most any other person in my situation. However, I'm also aware of how a review of these areas risks moving away from personal development ..This challenges what I thought was the importance I place on a holistic view of things. This was something that I learned about myself in the life coaching sessions I had earlier this year.

It seems I have some more thinking to do.

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).