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7/21/2004
Not at all delightful learning!

So here I am on a library computer, on holiday, and finished Report 6.
What did I learn from the self-assesment?
That it is not my strong point! I got into this cycle of identifying what was wrong with the first 6 sections and instead of writing about it I went back and fixed it - 6 times in some cases!!
A cry for help to a fellow researcher and to my LF later both had given the same advice.
"Stop- hand it in, forget about it!"
Good advice:-) So I did.
But it is still spinning round my head. I think I may have learned something really significant this term, despite not enjoying it much. Delightful? Not at all!! Painful? Definitely!!
I am still trying to put it into words, hence this blog entry. OK so what I learned was that my weaknesses are:
  • long term personal planning
  • self-assesment
  • perfectionism
  • rigid interpretation of guidelines/learning outcomes etc.
    Ok so the perfectionism and the tendency to be pedantic came as no shock but the unwillingness to self assess and long term plan are new to me. They might go some way to explain why I started things and didn't finish them in the past. They just might be the key to making sure I really do get the degree this time.
    So there you go- it was nasty, uncomfortable, and I didn't enjoy the process at all. So what are the implications for delightful learning? And creativity? OK it reminds me a bit of the story from another entry about the pain of the creative process. The change in perspective was painful but what has been delightful is knowing that I had the support of fellow researchers (including LFs). The other thing is that I now feel much more optimistic about the rest of the course. Over the summer at some point I'm going to look at what might get in the way of my finishing, scary but it needs to be done. And then I'm going to look for some strategies to deal with the problems!!
    Oh yes, the other thing I learned was how important my blog has become to me as a place to work things out, plan and share work, - vital in fact!
    I'll let you know how I get on:-)

    • Posted at 10:12:09 am by lmhartley
    Comments (2)  

    7/15/2004
    Report 6 and a break at last:-)

    OK I am more than half way through report 6 and 5 is more or less done. It has been quite a slog this term and delightful learning has been a bit thin on the ground!! Still, nearly there.
    Furl has been a invaluable resource for these reports- especially the ability to save a quote so I instantly know what site it is I'm looking at. I'm going to explore the search facility a bit more as I can see the categories might become a bit of a pain over time. It has certainly made doing my Harvard resouce list for the reports much easier!!
    I'm off for a few days well earned rest so I am hoping to be almost finished by tomorrow. Still a fair bit to do but I'm getting there:-)
    While I'm away I'm planning to meet up with at least a couple of other researchers - f 2 f at last! Should be fun!!
    Then back here for a few days and away again, first stop The JellyArt Socialon July 31st in London and hopefully lots more researchers to meet. It will be great to put faces to names and I'm sure a good time will be had by all.

    Posted at 10:23:13 pm by lmhartley
    Comments (2)  

    7/9/2004
    Assume good intent?

    I find it so hard sometimes to keep to this mantra. I try not to assume bad intent, which is not quite the same thing.
    First of all this is not just about one posting or any one person. A scenario:
    Someone posts to a community in good faith trying honestly to be helpful or to state their opinion on an issue. They state and make it clear that they are explaining how thing appear from their point of view

    A person in authority then takes it upon themselves not to just disagree but to imply the original poster is either not posting in good faith or is just in some way incompetent. The posting they make says that the first person's view is invalid, that they have no right to express it. That it is just not true, factually inaccurate.
    How does the original poster respond?
    Taking advice from the discussions with Nancy White in the Hotseat
  • Read it in a variety of tones including a comedy voice (Donald Duck, Basil Brush etc)
  • If not laughing yet turn off computer and do something else.
    OK so this is good advice. It is possible that some people's writing style just gets under your skin, rings your bells, maybe yours does that to the other person. However, not responding is not going to change the way this person reacts. They will just carry on reacting in this way if unchallenged and you will go on being upset by their responses. Not only that but other people may be discouraged from posting in case the same thing happens to them.
    So what are the other options?
  • Write a reply that explains that you were posting in good faith and further explains your position. Risky as you may over-react and make things worse. Misunderstandings can then multiply
  • Write a reply that restates the other person's position and asks for clarification if one has understood what is being said. Might be worthwhile for a major debate but seems too much for something more trivial.
  • Write a reply and put it in your unsent messages file for a short time then look at it again. Do this too often and you end up not posting anything and lose confidence.
  • Write a reply and check with a fellow researcher if it is OK. People are busy, may not have time, or just not want to get involved.
    So where does the original poster go from here?

    • Posted at 11:42:51 pm by lmhartley
    Comments (2)  

    7/8/2004
    Why would I want a wiki on my mac?

    Reading Andy's Blogue today he was talking to himself about the possible uses of a personal wiki on your own machine. Now whilst I love my blog and I do use it as a learning journal of sorts I also keep an Appleworks Learning Journal. This is because not everything I need to write in my Learning Journal is suitable for publication to the internet.
    I find the Appleworks doc a bit of a pain and I have to make a big effort to use it. Often what I write in it gets lost or doesn't fit into neat categories- maybe I'm just too much of a global thinker to cope with a linear document. So the idea of a wiki, with all that easy linking just seemed very appealing. The only problem was that Andy had only found a windoze version.
    Not to be defeated I decided to have a look for a mac friendly version. Took all of 5 mins to find Personal Wiki
    It looks good fun but I am saving it till Report 5 is finished - Saturday maybe?

    Posted at 11:03:27 pm by lmhartley
    Comments (2)  

    7/7/2004
    Stiching for Report 5

    From My ILP


    The "Stitching Together" in the form of a report.
    I will then analyse and report on, what I have learned, why this learning is worthwhile in my context, what I do differently now or in the future as a result of these activities. I will show what difference my learning has made.
    I will use these evaluations to make a PDP with SMART targets for the coming year.

    Plan


    1. Brief run through about pdps including 2 quotes. 250 words
    2. Workplace learning theories, constructivist theory with quote, situated learning ditto, 300 words
    3. Learning styles, general theories, Kolb, VAK, global/secquential etc. 200 words
    4. Discuss and analyse personal themes with ref to reflections and specific literature. 300 words
    5. Draw conclusions: bullet points 200 words
    6. Set and justify new goals 100 words
    7. SMART target PDP in a table 200 words.
    Currently about 500 words in. Phew!!

    Posted at 8:12:46 pm by lmhartley
    Comments (2)  

    6/28/2004
    Learning styles and all that stuff

    So in order to get report 5 done I re-visit learning styles and somehow get distracted by personality types again:-)

    I am still INFJof course But I found this gem of a quote


    "Also, you could lose out if you don't act assertively and are reluctant to intrude on others with your ideas...as a result, you could keep many important things to yourself...you'll then feel that your ideas are underestimated or unappreciated...maybe you should develop political saavy or assertiveness to sell your ideals...finally, you should be forthright with criticism of others...you're always doing the "If you can't say some- thing nice...." stuff. After you hold it inside, you'll blow up eventually."

    I'm still laughing! I've come so far and yet I still slip back to this! Luckily there are people in my life these days who remind me to let it out and I am trying to learn not to apologise afterwards as well.


    Posted at 11:41:00 am by lmhartley
    Comments (2)  

    6/27/2004
    Reviewing progress on Report 5

    OK so I have finished Learning Activities 1 and 2.
  • I have made a mind map and written a fictionalised reflection for the Team Teach course
  • I have made a slide show about our displays in school and another with audio commentary that shows the contrasts between the approach we take and that suggested by the course I attended.
  • I have written a first response reflection on the "Telling into Writing" project and a second, deeper one pulling out the themes for the future.
    I am now trying to do the report to stitch it all together and I have hit yet another brick wall. It seems really hard to find any relevent literature and the stuff on the Ultraversity web site is close to totally useless, either not appropriate or broken links! Ok so I found two sites to quote (see my FURL in the side section for links) and with the one about PDPs that Sarah (thanks again!) found that makes the bare minimum of quotes for a pass. It's not like me but I may have to settle for that this time. Not much scope for synthesis in this module either. Ahgh I hope they re-write this one for Cohort 2. It has been a pain from start to finish, and I'm not there yet!

    • Posted at 6:00:39 pm by lmhartley
    Comments (2)  

    6/26/2004
    Hot seat with Nancy White

    The hot place to be in Ultraversity at the moment is the Hotseat tool. It is interesting to see the tool come to life like this. Other Hotseats have been good but perhaps this one really gets to the nub of the degree in a way that others haven't.

    The community itself is very quiet with hardly anyone on First Class this weekend. Now maybe like me they are trying to nail Report 5. (It keeps running off and trying to be about delightful learning, reflection, creative processes, anything and everything except the dreaded Personal Development Plan!) Or maybe they have lives - remember those?

    Anyway it has been interesting to watch and take part in the hot seat discussions this week. There has certainly been some lively debate. One thing has been the bug which has allowed anonymous posting including this little gem


    Ah well I thought it was funny but not everyone saw the humour in it, I just hope they 'preserve' it for posterity when they make the website. (Sorry couldn't resist it and it's not even my pun!)
    On a more serious note the discussions have really shown what level of debate is possible amongst the community members. It seems a pity that it is so rarely achieved in FC. I wonder what we can do to take the lessons we are learning in the tool back into the main community? If this sort of discussion was happening in there a couple of times a month we'd all be happier and more energised.
    Some people have said they felt an edge of hostility in some of the postings but I don't see it myself. Sadly as it's password protected I can't provide a link for our friends in NZ but you'll see it afterwards when they anonymise it all and make it into a website.


    Posted at 11:46:08 pm by lmhartley
    Add your thoughts  

    6/24/2004
    refs to lit

    "To be playful and serious at the same time is possible, and it defines the ideal mental condition."

    John Dewey, How We Think

    And more up to date:

    "Many teachers continue to equate playfulness with frivolity, then complain when students are quiet and un-responsive. They offer examinations and grades as the goal of the class, then are surprised when students are concerned more about what will be on the final exam than larger conceptual issues. Students remember more, think more, and understand more when they enjoy the process."

    Alex Halavais

    Posted at 6:26:36 pm by lmhartley
    Add your thoughts  

    Play and delight

    I have had some more thoughts on this but still not very coherent.
  • Play doesn't have to be delightful. In fact children's play can be quiet cruel and painful.
  • This painful play can still be a learning experience.
    So I am still struggling with the concept of 'delight' in this context.

    Can creativity be taught?


    See Blair's blog for more details
    This may seem a million miles away fom what I should be working on for report 5 but I am starting to think that this is what I want to do in the longer term. To teach (or perhaps 'enable' is a better word) people to be creative and perhaps to do it using digital tools. This makes sense of my growing interest in blogging, web design etc. The only way I can cope with this module is to make it as real as possible and part of that reality is accepting that I do not want to stay doing this job forever.

    Some one was telling me recently about being taught to be creative and what a painful experience that had been. It had involved letting go of many preconceptions about what the participants wanted to produce and accepting the limitations of the technology they were to use to produce their work. The implication was that these limitations actually forced them to learn to be creative. It reminded me of learning to write poetry and the demands that using a particular form such as the sonnet (or the hiaku) places on the writer.
    Another incident also made me think more about this issue. I watched an adult 'playing' with technology to produce a piece of art and saw a very similar kind of intensity of concentration, frustration and pleasure to that displayed by the reception class.

    Richard Millwood's The New Learning Landscape gives some interesting insights into why we all need to play. I saw this last week but he has added a lot more detail since then. In a comment on an earlier entry to my blog Richard says of play
    "We need this because it allows mistakes to be made with delight, and sustains improvement / perfection of ideas."
    I think this permission to make mistakes is key, at least in this culture. Not sure about in the US or even New Zealand.


    • Posted at 3:25:49 pm by lmhartley
    Comments (1)  

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