So Christmas is officially over! Gone are all the Christmas shows
and pantomimes we do here at Warner's. I thoroughly enjoyed Christmas away from
home as hard as it was! Working on Christmas day was tough as well but it kept
me busy! The hotel has closed now for 10 days as we go through some HUGE
refurbishments but the work doesn't stop for me! 5 days holiday then I'm
straight back teaching a new girl into our shows! It's all good fun!
Here's some pics of our fantastic Christmas and New Year 'Warner Style'
and for those of you who don't know what that is, it's essentially a holiday
vacation aimed towards the over 50's.
Now that it's all out the way it only means one thing.... time to submit
the essay! Did anyone else get that nervous feeling as you clicked submit?!
2017 is a big year, the final year of my studies, I just don't know
what's going to happen. I really want to be able to get my teaching career up
and running this year. Started off well by planning some unpaid work experience
at a primary school near me! I am excited for that come February time! I'll
keep you all updated! Be nice to have a rest from studying for a few weeks
though! Wishing you all the best for the New Year!!!!
This is my online version of my Howard Gardner intelligence test for an appendix to my essay. I thought the only way to do this would be to edit in adobe PDF and print screen to my blog and then in the essay to link my blog.
I don't know about anyone else but Harvard referencing is completely new to me! Paula's blog post with the website really helped! It allows you to search for what type of source you are trying to cite and shows you how to do it properly. http://www.citethemrightonline.com
All you have to do is sign in with your unihub details! I wish I'd seen this before!
Now that I am working on my second draft for the essay things are becoming very real and scary! I still would love a little magic fairy to tell me the grade I am currently at so I know what I'm looking at getting.
So now that I'm a little more confident on the referencing hopefully this will help my next draft, I also did my first draft in headings for each part of the module but after receiving feedback I need to focus more on using the module as a lens for my practice rather than using the module as a base for the essay, use your practice, I think this is good advice from Adesola - my tutor and something I hadn't really understood at first but now that I do I think I can move forward and start focusing on getting a really detailed essay.
An update on life
Work is tough lately as Christmas approaches and fitting it in around all my studies is harder than I initially thought but being away from home at Christmas is also something new to me but as you can see below I've tried to make my room here at the hotel as homely as possible! So I'm feeling festive and its christmas here at Nidd Hall so MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!
Do some specific ideas emerge about your networking and sources?
Networking is a huge tool that builds our relationships with those in the industry, I need to find those networks that have already been through what I want to go through, the transition of two totally different careers. It is vital I develop my networking skills using the tools I have learnt to build more networks for my future employment.
Does your engagement to date seem appropriate? I feel as part 3 of the module my focus was less on this than the other two parts, I think this may be because I saw 'Networking' and thought 'well I already know how to do that' turns out when looking into the theories and understanding them more I was far from where I thought I was... I am very much a planner and I think the planning can sometimes overtake the actual task, What I should be doing is focusing on the work rather than focusing on the perfect plan. Networking is a very similar concept to the engagement I should have on tasks, forget the planning of networking- just go out and do it!
Are your ideas or concerns shared by others within and/or beyond your professional area of work? Blogging is the biggest answer to this question, it is nice to see that others feel the same concerns you have and aren't afraid to share them...being able to use Web 2.0 and view the blog as well as create the information (sharing comments) is so useful to add extra bits of knowledge and concepts you many have missed. Reading beyond the BAPP blogs and into blogs created by others studying similar concepts within our course has massively opened up my mind to new concepts missed by myself when researching.
Does sharing ideas and communicating with others shift your thinking, planning or practice? Before the module I never thought blogging could help me learn even more, but by reading others blogs I sometimes question my own blog, which then creates a debate in my head which in turn creates another blog for myself. Communication with others is so important as highlighted in Reader 3 - Community of practice and Connectivism - and it is this interaction with others that creates an extended learning base. Commenting on others blogs also allows me to share my ideas and perhaps change or influence their ideas of practice.
Does critical reflection help you decide what really matters and the actions to take? If i didnt take a critical approach to why things work and why things don't then there would be no improvement for future success, by analysing deeply I can work out the correct approach so I think before thinking about critical reflection I was definitely a lot more comfortable with failure than I am now. Everything I do now I seem to refect on, this is something that has become more apparent by writing my personal journal, I have had a reason to write a journal and this in turn has made me approach things I wouldn't normally look into. To what extent do concepts and theories assist you in thinking about your professional networking in different ways? Before undertaking this BAPP course I had very little understanding of the concepts of professional networking, I felt I knew what it was but the theories behind it were completely new to me, now that I have an understanding of the theories I can already advance from the ideas I already subconciously use to the more advanced theories of professional networking thus in turn increasing my knowledge on the networks I have yet to discover.
Are you left thinking differently prior to this part of the module? How? This is the question I feel most confident to answer, as already mentioned above the new concepts of professional networking introduced to me have facinated me on how important professional networking is for a the basis of a sucessful career. By actually framing in on what networks I use and the sources I have I feel I have the correct actions in place now by using tools of reflection to develop the networking process in my current and future practices. The tasks have allowed me to give myself time to focus more in depth on my skills through the networking process, without the sessions that Paula and Adesola delivers to us I wouldn't have the same thinking as I have now. I already feel a great sense of learning achievement throughout the module and especially the new networking concepts. Looking back through my private journal reflects these feelings of knowing nothing to feeling confident enough to make blogs on the subjects.
The next part of this task is to make comments on others blogs, I thought the best way to do this would be to wait for people to upload blogs on this part of the module and then collabaroate all these comments into one large blog. Whilst waiting for this I am going to research into other forums and blogs relating to the concepts the tasks have covered and try and share my thoughts through comments on these new blogs that I have not come across before.
Reader 3 touches on five theories all related to professional networking, before this module I knew the basics of professional networking whilst studying at college and how important it was to create a large network to gain a sucessful career. It is becoming more apparent to me how true this actually is. The theories the reader focuses on are Cooperation, Affiliation, Social Constructionism, Connectivism and Communities of Practice. These words and phrases at first made no sense to me so it took me a lot of bravery and courage to set focus on this task and how to understand it, especially in the sense of what can they offer me? Using a few concepts of these theories should create 'The Networked Professional'. The session with the other BAPP arts students and Paula did make my thinking a lot clearer on some of this.
Communities of Practice
This is a concept that was first used by Lave and Wenger. Definted to us as:
'Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.'
A neighbourhood to you and I would be considered a Community but by community of practice we mean people who share the same learning and knowledge as you do and come together as a community. The three charcteristics seemed vital for something to be a Community of practice are as follows.... A DOMAIN- A SHARED DOMAIN OF INTEREST A COMMUNITY- MEMBERS ENGAGE WITH EACH OTHER (SHARED INTERESTS OF DOMAIN) THE PRACTICE- MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY ARE PRACTITIONERS
During the session I mapped my communities of Practice with the help of Paula.
Affiliation
This is a concept I know I already am fairly familiar with, the creation of relationships, some people inspire me and like I mentioned in the session blog with people seperating their social and professional lives I find this quite hard to do, the line between a relationship on a professional basis and those of a social basis are hard to define and the line can waver. Especially in the arts industry Affiliation can be pretty dangerous, whereas co-operation is a little less tying. Affiliation is a friendly concept and one that in the right sense can build some great networks.
Co-operation
This is a concept I had heard of but never looked into deeply, the reader 3 suggests; ‘cooperate till maximum benefit then defect’, thus my understanding being once something has been achieved the group no longer has to cooperate, quite a selfish act but nevertheless a networking process.
Game Theory strongly links to this, an article that really helped my understanding at the level we cooperate was https://www.quantamagazine.org/20150212-game-theory-calls-cooperation-into-question/. In it is a great example of a 'tit for tat' strategy.
I find this whole theory fascinating and reading into Robert Axelrod and 'The Prisoners Dilemma' has also helped with the understanding of this concept. I think I would struggle to use Co-operation as an only way to network due to the fact I pride myself over not being a selfish person, but with Affiliation and Cooperation together in the right balance I can see how I would make a strong 'Networked Professional'.
Connectivism
In a way Connectivism takes me back to task 1b where I looked into Web 2.0 and how it has given us the opportunity for a viewer to be a creator, in order to share knowledge etc. Experience has long been considered the best teacher of knowledge and by people sharing this knowledge through online forums and blogs we then in turn learn more, previous to Web 2.0 we couldnt use the concepts of Connectivism. BAPP is a great example of just how Connectivism has an influence on our learning and networking skills.
George Siemens was the biggest originator on this theory and I watched him speaking in this youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqL_lsogeNU&feature=player_embedded. He phrases that 'structured learning is irrelevant these days'. It's an interesting watch if you get chance!
Stepehen downes also has some great slide shares on the subject http://www.slideshare.net/Downes/connectivism-and-personal-learning http://www.slideshare.net/Downes/elements-of-connectivism
Social Constructionism
Now this for me was the hardest theory to understand and I still feel I need some extra research into what this really is. A great simple video I came across through a google search that made Social Contructionism more understandable for me was the one below.
I'm not sure whether I'm right in the theory but to me it means that because people are making something seem real through social interaction etc then it becomes real...
For example someone could have badly reviewed a product they had bought and because someone wanting to buy the product read it, it made them think badly of the product too, to me social contructionism shows that we put a lot of trust in what others say, and their experience can affect someone else who hasnt necessarily had the experience.
Because of my confusion on this theory I am going to take up some more reading on this one, any sites you have that you guys could recommend to help me understand this better would be great!
After looking into all these concepts and ideas about networking I feel already a much better understanding of the processes networking involves. Before taking this module I would have never reflected over the way I did a task, but on reflection in my private journal of how I dealt with this certain task I feel I've already set the appropriate actions in place to make myself understand in much more detail.
The Adobe connect session with Paula and some of the other BAPP course students covered so much of the pondering questions I had...
Firstly we covered the questions we may have about Part 3 of the module - professional networking. It was interesting to hear different peoples perspectives of what they thought the difference was between a network and a professional one. For some they keep it very seperate, two different pages for the private and personal and the professional and public. For me it is quite hard to do this as most of the professional networks I have are mainly my friends too. This was something I had never really picked up on, a professional network can be a friend too. This all linked into Lave and Wenger theories - 'Community of Practice'.
Paula asked us what Community of Practice's we had... no one answered so lucky me got picked on! Fortunately by Paula asking me directly it made me understand the concept a lot more once she had explained and she used me as an example mapping the communities I have... once she had started the process for me it became clear to me that I had many more I had never even considered before today. Me and Amelia had a little chat at the end of the session and actually found that both of us are a community of practice for each other, as we both have sources of information and both know each other from before undertaking this course. By the end of mapping my own communities I ended up with an additional 3 circles than Paula had created for me.
Cabaret artists
– allow me to expand my networks outside of the hotel and allow me to network
with people higher up in the industry than myself, having these contacts means
they know more people who are at the top and capable of giving out jobs
Tutors/Lecturers-
Paula and Adesola are a massive network to me because they are my only contacts
who know the course and can give me feedback on my work
Team in my current hotel – this practice means we all know how the ‘Nidd Hall’
framework should be, without this community we couldn’t have social lives nor
run the hotel without each other.
Other Bapp students-
past and present these students can share their problems that they maybe had in
the past and give me tips or share their problems where I can help out,
blogging allows me to network with this community of practice easily
Bourne Leisure employees- this network is the largest of all the networks for me
in terms of my current practice, the email service we use here allows us to
network with every single employee within the large company to share
knowledge/advice/news
Other hotels in the same
branch- again similar to the bourne leisure employees, this community share the
brand ensuring that marketing etc are all the same and in terms of my practice
– shows and entertainment activities are done properly.
Unfortunately I had to leave the session early due to work commitments but I have taken a look at the slides I missed. It looks like a strong topic of conversation after me leaving was the Critical Reflection Essay, the slide with what we can contain was very useful to me, especially the use of appendices that I have never really come accross before, I was used to referencing but not adding appendices so I think this will be quite a challenge for me when it comes to it!
Overall the session has shot my confidence and belief in myself up, before the session I was feeling behind and not on track, but now I know where I am going forward I have a better sense of what to do next. Looking at the picture below I was on the 2nd step, throughout the session I moved up to the 'I'll try to do it' step and today I'm feeling the 'I can do it' step. Something as simple as this picture is a great way to reflect on your feelings about an upcoming task.
Comments or questions you have about the session post below, or anything I vitally missed when I left would be interesting to hear about! where do you feel you are at the moment on the step ladder? With not long to go let's all try and reach the top :)
Stress is that one word nobody likes to say... but after a long string of blog posts today it is one word I am definitely feeling. I am very much a planner and most of my blog posts are written thoroughly in a notepad before I go ahead and type them up, this is not one of those kind of blogs, however I find it easier to go through the tasks slowly and in writing form and then turn these into blogs, I think this maybe because on paper you can be a lot less informal whereas a blog you really have to think about whethere the reader will understand you...
Today in terms of copying up the work 'blog style' it has been productive, however the time I have been using could of been used to add more to the dreaded essay I know that is hiding at the back of everyone's mind. I have decided to take a new approach for the remaining two tasks! BRIEF plan only in the notepad and blog the main bulk.
I dont know about anyone else but I'm still feeling behind... It's that feeling nobody wants but everybody somehow gets when it comes to written work.
I basically just wanted to blog my feelings and see if I was the only one and if I'm not how are you all coping with the final aspects of module 1?
Just a little motivational picture for you all if you are all feeling a bit down with the deadlines coming around so fast......
