Misdirection, redirection, moving on

Taking time to reflect is sometimes the hardest part of life, although it shouldn't be. Every time a fresh cohort of H8** start twittering, I am reminded how much I got into using my blog as a way to reflect and steer my mind. I am also reminded of how I let life and work get in the way! So, no more feeling sorry for myself, its time to start blogging again. I am now a freelance trainer and consultant and every week I am seeing new things and thinking about stuff. I definitely have lots to share.
Of course, one of the things I need to decide, is whether to set up a new blog, or to keep using this one? By using this one (of which I like my title), I can continue my journey and be more broad in my subjects. But should I have a separate one which focuses more on safeguarding? 
I am about to go on holiday, so I will ponder this over the next two weeks, but do let me know your thoughts. Do I branch out on separate lines, or return to my Antics here. 
And if you have just started H8** - good luck! Soak it up. Get involved. Its one of the best things I have ever done.

The project approach: networked practice and learning from peers

Open and networked practice

The final project artefact is intended to be an open educational resource, so developing the project in an open environment was a meaningful way to explore and role model online participation. Online networks and open practices are an integral part of my personal (as a student) and professional (as a practitioner) world. Four main platforms were used to inform and develop the project: the Open University, Twitter, a personal blog and open journals. As the project was situated in my professional context, using established networks outside of the Open University was important. Other practitioners and Scouting volunteers presented different viewpoints, and diversity of opinion was helpful in critically reviewing the project development.

This personal blog was used as the central point with which to share the development of the project. I hope the blog has afforded participation in digital ‘creation’, alongside the development my digital identity. It does have a limited audience, but sharing posts through Twitter has increased this and also helped to extend the discussions (thanks all). New and existing contacts have aided reflection and signposted to further research and resources. Twitter was also beneficial when looking at the macro-environmental factors. Using the hashtag facility as a search tool highlighted current debates, projects and interested people. Furthermore, it afforded research on the move as posts could be read or bookmarked for future review from a mobile device. The main impact in being more open was that practitioners outside of the Open University engaged in the debates. This gave assurance, credibility and confidence in the project’s relevance for the wider world. 

Creating posters and peer review

The creation of a conference poster presented a chance to explore new, online, multimedia tools and consider alternative forms of digital creativity.

Multimedia methods

In face-to-face practice a variety of methods and media are used to deliver educational material and I wanted to mirror this within the project. I wanted to tell a story, but to keep the messages simple and reflective of core values, in order to engage and motivate the intended audience. Mayer’s (2005) cognitive theory of multi-media learning however, reminds us that we have separate, limited, channels for processing auditory and visual information and we need to get the mix of media right in order to actively process information and create coherent mental representations. 

As Scouting is about ‘learning by doing’, I adopted this approach. By experimenting with different media formats and presenting them early for review, I was able to determine the most appropriate approach. Animations provoked more emotional responses and recognition of their story-telling potential. The final decision to use a slideshow based animation was a result of asking Scouting volunteers to feedback on two different kinds of animation, in order to get a different perspective. They viewed the slideshow animations as more interactive and engaging, with greater potential for re-purposing.

The role of feedback

The process of engaging in feedback, on our own as well as others work, aided poster development. Feedback developed from simple comments to more detailed and constructive guidance as we engaged with other student’s material and reflected back on our own. A good example of this is how later feedback often asked about the theme and the artefact, as more students realised this was not explicit within their own posters. The first poster version created provoked attention-grabbing, motivational responses and recognised the impact of the visuals and logical approach it afforded. However feedback also helped develop the poster so that it became more explicit in the concepts it was exploring and included clearer links to the project questions and outcomes. Once again, feedback from outside of the Open University was also sought, to ensure that the approach and messages maintained a wider relevance, but also kept the wider network updated with the project progress. The process of feedback also helped in determining potential accessible alternatives. Following feedback and discussion with fellow students in OULive, an audio text version was created, which responded to comments and a simple slideshow version, with embedded alternative text for screen readers, for those who needed time to navigate the slides or visual descriptions of the content. The process of giving and receiving feedback has therefore been invaluable in critically evaluating the development of project resources.

So thanks all for being part of the project too!

The project topics: Digital identity and digital inclusion

Digital Inclusion

Defining digital inclusion is challenging as research and debates are often embedded in specific contexts. Most definitions converge around the idea that all members of society are able to access the affordances that technology offers (Seale, 2009, Selwyn and Facer, 2007).

Political and economic influences

There are strong political and economic influences throughout many of the debates on digital inclusion. The UK Government defines digital inclusion as ‘having the right access, skills, motivation and trust to confidently go online’ (Cabinet Office, 2014). However, the government’s motivations appear to be focused on creating economic opportunities, with commissioned work addressing access, through infrastructure projects with telecommunications companies, and skills, for example, the projects commissioned by Go ON UK (www.go-on.co.uk ). Projects addressing the motivation and trust barriers appear more limited. The government view of motivation supports the premise that going online makes it easier to find a job, improve household income, and get more benefits from public services. These motivations are predominantly economical and financial, rather than social and cultural.

Meaningfulness and digital choice

Further debates about the motivational barriers emerge mainly from the educational field, where educators are looking at how to utilise ‘technology-enhanced’ learning. Seale (2009) notes that a lack of skills is not the only influence on technology use. It must have some meaningful use in people’s lives and afford contextual uses; in other words, it needs to have ‘life-fit’. Online initiatives often forget that a person’s motivation and attitude towards the use of technology, may be as important as the access quality and location. Individuals develop positive and negative attitudes about technology, which, alongside other cultural barriers, need to be tackled. Understanding the ‘digital choices’ (Helsper, 2008) people make is a necessary factor when considering inclusion.

Scouting values and digital inclusion

Inclusion is therefore about opportunities and practices and not just the deficits and barriers. An individual’s values will be influential in determining the meaningfulness of using technology. Seale (2009) reminds us that people bring their own set of motivations, skills and resourcefulness to the online world. So could the existing motivations and skills of volunteers, founded upon shared values, motivate and encourage meaningfulness in digital participation?

Identity

The ‘identity’ topic emerged from research about the trust barriers to inclusion and the relevance of identity in the digital landscape. From a practitioner perspective, digital identity is at the forefront of discussions about online safety. A conscious comprehensive understanding of the nature of digital identity and how to manage it however, has yet to be developed (de Kerckhove and Almedia, 2013; Ollier-Malaterre and Rothbard, 2013).

Understanding identity

‘Identity’, put simply, is the perception and expression we have of ourselves. Influenced by cultural contexts and social interactions (Suke, 2009), it is generally agreed that identity is perceived differently in different contexts (Besley, 2011; Cullen, 2009). Accordingly, online identity is about how we present ourselves to others online, and how we perceive ourselves through our online interactions (Gradinaru, 2013).

Digital identity

Early debates about digital identity concentrated on anonymity and the multitude of opportunities the internet afforded. Technology has developed and is now embedded in everyday lives, a process Gradinaru (2013) called ‘technological domestication’. The internet is no longer a playground with which to construct different identities (although we still use the internet to explore different facets of identity), but has become a way of ‘customising’ our identities, more clearly linking back to the ‘real’. This means that individuals participating online need have an understanding of the structure of digital spaces, and how they influence and shape identity (Kimmons, 2014). For example, less face to face contact encourages more self-disclosure, which is the main affordance of social networking (Belk, 2013).

The challenges

Online spaces offer opportunities and challenges. The challenges converge around mis-understanding information. Digital identity is easier to misinterpret because the original context and meaning of digital presentations can be lost, as they are not necessarily linked to specific contexts, particular relationships or situations. Self-disclosure can lead to boundary dilemmas (Lannin and Scott, 2013), which is why most advice talks about the benefits of developing separate personal and professional digital identities. However, as Lannin and Scott (2013) note in their paper about how psychologists navigate the online world, it would be naïve to think that our private lives will never intersect with the professional.

Scouting values and managing identity

Individuals have to make their own decisions about digital identity, but educators can help empower them. They need a heightened awareness of the risks and rewards afforded by online participation in order to take responsibility and make choices about their own digital identity. By integrating Scouting values with messages about digital identity, could volunteers consider how to participate in ways that are meaningful and truthful for them, within a framework they already observe? 

References

Belk, R. W. (2013). Extended self in a digital world. Journal of Consumer Research, 40(3), 477-500. [online] Available at: http://www.dies.uniud.it/tl_files/utenti/crisci/Belk%202013a.pdf (Accessed 2 January 2015)

Besley, T. (2011). Digitized Youth: Constructing identities in the creative knowledge economy. Annals Of Spiru Haret University, Journalism Studies, 12(1), 9-22.

 de Kerckhove, D., & de Almeida, C. M. (2013). What is a digital persona?. Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research, 11(3), 277-287 

Cabinet Office (2014) Government Digital Inclusion Strategy, 13 April 2014 [online] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-digital-inclusion-strategy (Accessed 2 January 2015) 

Cullen (2009) Culture, identity and information privacy in the age of digital government.  Online Information Review, 33(3), 405-421. 

Gradinaru, C. (2013). From Multitude to Convergence: Contemporary Trends in the Study of Online Identity. Argumentum: Journal the Seminar Of Discursive Logic, Argumentation Theory & Rhetoric, 11(2), 95-108. 

Helsper, Ellen (2008) Digital inclusion: an analysis of social disadvantage and the information society. Department for Communities and Local Government, London, UK. [online] Available at: http://www.esd.org.uk/esdtoolkit/communities/DigitalInclusion/tools%5COXiS%20Report.pdf (Accessed 2 January 2015)

Kimmons, R. (2014). Social Networking Sites, Literacy, and the Authentic Identity Problem. Techtrends: Linking Research & Practice to Improve Learning, 58(2), 93-98.

Lannin, D. G., & Scott, N. A. (2013). Social networking ethics: Developing best practices for the new small world. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 44(3), 135-141.

Ollier - Malaterre, A., Rothbard, N. P., & BERG, J. M. (2013). When worlds collide in cyberspace:How Boundary work in online social networks impacts professional relationships. Academy Of Management Review, 38(4), 645-669. 

Seale, J. (2009). Digital Inclusion. A research briefing by the technology enhanced learning phase of the teaching and learning research programme. [online] Available at: http://www.tlrp.org/docs/DigitalInclusion.pdf (Accessed 2 January 2015)

 Selwyn, N., & Facer, K. (2007). Beyond the digital divide. Opening Education Reports. Bristol: Futurelab. [online]. Available at: http://www2.futurelab.org.uk/resources/documents/opening_education/Digital_Divide.pdf (Accessed 2 January 2015) 

Suke, C. (2009). College Male Students' Cultural Value Identity in the New Media World. China Media Research, 5(4), 41-46.

The project drivers

Project overview

A bit of background into the three main areas areas of the project. Firstly the value-based approach, and why for me it is important to use this as a core in work. Then the importance of digital inclusion and identity (we will explore this more in the next blog post). and finally how I am trying to be a role-model, learning by doing and participating online.

A values-based context

As a practitioner working in the field of children’s safeguarding, educational work is grounded in the values of the organisation. This involves explicitly linking Scouting values (integrity, respect, care, belief, co-operation) to key messages and using the Scouting method (learning by doing, taking part in activities, taking responsibility and making choices, undertaking new and challenging activities and having fun) when designing learning activities. This values-based approach was adopted in order to make safeguarding more accessible for volunteers and simplify the core messages. The approach concentrates on enabling people rather than restricting them. This approach has resulted in volunteers being more readily engage in discussions; with a better understanding, acceptance and recognition of the key messages given to them. I believe this remains a powerful and productive way to approach work and educational messages.

Exploring digital inclusion and identity

Existing research and advice about going ‘online’ often centres on the practicalities of ‘how to’ go online rather than addressing the ‘why’ go online or the ‘how to be’ online.  While the practical aspects are important, addressing the social and psychological barriers that adults may have to overcome is an essential and less commonplace discussion. Consequently, the project wanted to explore whether the adoption of a value-based approach to inclusion and identity, could offer a simple, but effective framework to help engage volunteers in discussions about digital participation.

Participation and networked practice

After identifying that education and development involves participation, and because the project was a result of an Open University module focused on networked practice, it was important that the project reflected this in its design and approach. For this reason, the underpinning objective of the project was to ‘learn by doing’ in order to develop knowledge and skills as a ‘networked’ practitioner. This included undertaking new activities online and adopting a participatory approach in achieving the project’s aims.

In the run up to the conference...

The Open University conference is here and yesterday the first students presented their projects. It was an amazing array of different projects, topics and professions. That's the great thing about the Open University, fellow students are so diverse, so you get a richness of learning about different contexts and through different eyes. Although the conference was for Open University students and alumni, you can see some of the content here in Cloudworks.

I feel like I cheated a bit, but by exploring a topic that I am already passionate about and that I work on in 'real-life' (let's face it, I am a boundary defying practitioner), I have managed to create something that may be useful in the future. 

I am going to share my last assignment with you through the next few bog posts, so you can understand a little more about the 'stuff' that I have been thinking about. I will also post a recorded version of my presentation, once the 'real' one is done!

Conference Abstract

Volunteers in Scouting do amazing things with young people every day, and whether they are climbing a mountain or using social media they should use the values and methods of scouting to guide them. 

For The Scout Association, education is about helping young people build confidence and life-long skills. This participatory approach to education means the ‘digital-inclusion’ of adult volunteers is less about accessibility of content and more about participation in online practices and engaging with young people in the online world. Consequently, the ‘Being Prepared’ project wanted to explore whether the adoption of a ‘values-based approach’ to digital inclusion, could offer a simple, but effective framework to help engage volunteers in discussions about digital participation. 

Digital inclusion is a multi-faceted concept, and the barriers to inclusion are embedded in social, cultural, economic and technological contexts. Existing research and advice often centres on the practicalities of ‘how to’ go online. While this is important, addressing the social and psychological barriers that adults may have to overcome are essential and less commonplace conversations. Therefore digital inclusion should also examine the ‘why’ go online and the ‘how to be’ online.

The ‘why’ go online looks at how motivation and attitudes towards technology use will affect the choices made. Individuals may think the technical aspects too challenging or feel participation is irrelevant. For this reason discussions about digital inclusion should consider the ‘meaningfulness’ of digital participation in people’s lives. Digital identity, the ‘how to be’ online, is about the presentation of self to others online, and the perception of self, developed through online interactions. From a practitioner perspective, digital identity is at the forefront of discussions about online safety, as individuals learn to navigate the online world. Exploring identity highlights the risks, fears and feelings connected to the sense of self and exposes individual vulnerabilities in an unknown environment. Digital inclusion needs to help individuals to take responsibility and make informed choices about their own digital identity, so they can take advantage of the opportunities as well as understanding the risks afforded by digital participation.

This presentation tells the story of the ‘Being Prepared’ project. In order to understand the context, it introduces Scouting and outlines the debates about digital inclusion and digital identity in more detail. The project takes a socio-cultural view of inclusion and identity, and proposes that digital inclusion, like education and development is constructed and defined through our interactions with others and the world around us. Therefore the existing motivations and skills of Scouting volunteers, established upon shared values, can encourage meaningful and truthful digital participation, within a framework already observed. 

The presentation will conclude by presenting the project artefact; an open educational resource, which takes the form of a website. The purpose of the artefact is not to provide volunteers with the answers, but to engage them in the conversation, and to help them to take responsibility for making their own choices. Choices that are founded upon Scouting values and methods. 

Digital inclusion - what does it mean?

For the first part of my project I have been exploring digital inclusion and what it really means. Like most ‘concepts’, there is a lack of clarity around definition. This puts it in danger of becoming another meaningless concept that is bandied about. So what have I found?

Economic and political motivations

The UK Government defines digital inclusion as ‘having the right access, skills, motivation and trust to confidently go online’ (Cabinet Office, 2014). They want us to be digitally capable of going online and using it to improve our lives. However the government’s motivations stem from creating opportunities and ensuring that we have the competencies needed to develop the economy. This is evident from that fact that many of the projects that have arisen from the Digital Strategy have focused on access and skills ( see Go ON UK ). While large companies are working alongside the government to ensure we have the infrastructure to deliver platforms and services, Go-ON UK are working with partners to make sure that adults have the basic digital skills needed. And there are some fantastic projects being delivered, many of which are focusing on those who are deemed to be excluded (socio-economic areas of older demographics).

 In fact even Europe has a digital strategy to ‘help digital technologies, including the internet, deliver sustainable economic growth’. Once again this focuses on access and skills, although there is also mention of cyber-security. However this focus on access and skills, has a hint of technological determinism (technology will make the world a better place) about it. It divides people into the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’, focusing on access and skills. Skills and access are not the only things that influence decision about whether people find using technology appropriate or meaningful in their lives.

Motivation to go online

The government strategy highlights ‘motivation’ and ‘trust’ as elements of their digital strategy, and say that overcoming the barriers is about all of them, but there seems to be little in depth discussion around the motivation and trust barriers. The motivation seems to be that being able to go online will make it easier to find a job, to improve household income, to get more benefits from public services and entertainment. But I wonder whether these motivations are too ‘capitalist’ in their approach. In other words, they are appealing to people economically and financially, rather than socially and culturally. Motivation is about the relevance to the individual, and the triggers will be different for different people. There cannot be a one size fits all approach.

Digital Inclusion (Seale, 2009)

Seale’s (2009) report is an update about the research being conducted around digital inclusion, and what wider discussions can bring to the development of technology enhanced learning. She highlights in the opening that definitions of digital inclusion

 ‘tend to embed within them an expectation or imperative that digital inclusion happens when all members of society are able to access the affordances offered by technology use ‘(page 3)

The report focuses on four aspects: Access, Use, Participation and Empowerment. Access, as is seen by the Government’s digital strategy links to technologies and services (direct access is seen as being able to access technology and indirect access is about accessing online services). Use, is highlighted as mainly being about the skills that individuals have to use technology. However, Seale notes that it is not just a lack of skills that influences technology use. Technology must have some meaningful use in people’s lives and afford contextual uses; in other words, does it have a ‘life-fit’. Seale also asks us whether non-use of technology is problematic. This is an important question, which later papers will explore.

Traditionally, ‘inclusion’ is focused on helping people to participate in society. Therefore digital inclusion is about helping to reduce the disadvantaged, and encourage participation for the marginalised. (see the Helsper paper on my next blog post for the link between social and digital exclusion).  Seale draws our attention to Cook and Light (2006) who explore participation and see it as a fluid process and make a distinction between active (we influence the way technology is used) and passive  (recipients of the service) participation. This leads on to the final aspect, empowerment. You see power comes up a lot in discussions about the online world, but also in discussions about inclusion. Seale highlights that the government see technology as a vehicle for empowerment, and link this to the idea of independence. Seale issues some sensible warnings about linking empowerment to independence and self-sufficiency, as it leads us to link digital inclusion with skills deficits, forgetting that people have a whole host of other ‘strengths, motivations and resourcefulness’ to bring with them. Personally I would rather use the term self-efficacy, that is, an individual believes in their own ability, which is what I think empowerment is all about rather than independence.

The key point that Seale is making is that digital inclusion is multi-faceted. It is a social, cultural and cognitive concepts, and so we must define and redefine for our own contexts while recognising the wider discussions that are going on. If we think about inclusion in terms of access, then we consider how equality of opportunity can benefit. If we think about inclusion in terms of use and empowerment, then we are prompted to think about the equality of the outcomes not just the opportunities.

For my next blog post I will be exploring the concept of digital inclusion some more, and looking at how this links to social disadvantage, participation, and whether we need to change how we look at this, and consider whether digital choice is a good thing.

Cabinet Office (2014) Government Digital Inclusion Strategy, 13 April 2014 [online] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-digital-inclusion-strategy

Cook, J & Light, A. (2006) New patterns of power and participation? Designing ICT for Informal and Personalised Flexible Community Learning. E-Learning, 3, 1, 51-61.

Seale, J. (2009). Digital Inclusion. A research briefing by the technology enhanced learning phase of the teaching and learning research programme. [online] Available at: http://www.tlrp.org/docs/DigitalInclusion.pdf

Deck the halls - Creating a multi-media poster.

Merry Christmas one and all, and although the last month has flown by, some of us are back in the swing of things and studying hard (after all there is an assignment deadline waiting in the wings). 

December has been about creating a multimedia poster in H818, in order to 'advertise' our presentation at the online conference which will be happening in February. So we have all been experimenting with different media and trying to figure out which one to use. (My next post will include my beta version!).

Challenge 1: what is a poster?
This was the first hurdle for many of us, as when you think 'poster', the concept of a physical, graphical presentation spring to mind (like the ones that you stuck all over your wall as teenager, only more educational). any of the tools tried out helped to present this more one dimensional approach. However, the guidance we were given was that it had to be 'multi-media. which means it needs to be raised from one dimensional, to at least two!

Challenge 2: Multimedia tools
Thus began the trek into the forbidden kingdom and an exploration of the tools and variety of format that one could choose to make a poster out of. For many of the tools, the companies like to suck you in with freebies, but if you want to make them available to others then you need pay up. The other thing is that you can spend 'HOURS' online creating new things, so you have to start getting selective.

One of the first things I tried was Toon doo, which wasn't really a multi-media tool, but I loved the cartoon strip that you could create. Hours of fun! You can even produce your own comic, and the graphics looks great.

By samsantics | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

I will be using this tool again in the future, and possibly using some of it for my final artifact. 

My poster

Following on from this I found Glogster. This is an amazing (american) site, where the tools can be used by students to create their own educational posters. There are hundreds of them to look at. I do wonder if anyone really using them as content or whether the emphasis is on the creation. This is a great way to get kids to be creative, and I wish I had this when I was doing my homework 30 years ago!  Anyway, this was a tool that had a great poster layout allowing for embedding video and audio content. I created a really rough draft to decide whether this would be the approach that I might use. The great thing about Glogster is that it also works on mobile devices. I ended up signing up to the service, as I will be using this tool in the future as a great way to get information together in one place.

So far this was the contender for the poster......

...then I came back to animation. I don't know why, by I like animation and so it was great to explore some different formats.

Firstly there was Moovly. I like the tool because it was a bit like the video and audio editors you get, although the characters and pictures were a little limited (I expect like most tools, you get more if you pay). This was very addictive! It allowed you to create a more classic version of the animated films you see a lot nowadays. I really liked it and could see some potential for creating both the poster and the artifact.

 

Then there was animoto. I am afraid this was the approach that I fell in love with! I have used some similar slideshow animations before, and I like the combination of text, images and music. I can't tell you why, but I think it's to do with the richness and also the emotive nature of the medium. 



So I asked what people preferred... I was still potentially leaning towards the moovly animation, but after talking to volunteers, a number of them preferred the immediacy of the animoto animation. Animoto however is REALLY expensive if you want to remove the watermark and get the video. And it's a great tool so I can see why it would be.

Challenge 3: Accessibility
As several people pointed out, the challenge with a full on multimedia approach is that it is not very accessible for those with impaired sight. We also talked about how some people like this multimedia approach and other's didn't. So my challenge was to consider whether to use the tool that I really wanted, and create accessible alternatives, or whether to use a different tool. 

Because I had created my storyboard using a slide show, I decided to explore other tools that I could use. Also, by using a slideshow, I could potentially create an accessible alternative that people could click through themselves and a transcript. I like this idea, as I have never tried writing audio descripton's before, so it seemed a good time to try!

Final tool - Wondershare slideshow creator
Not a free tool, but as it's Christmas I decided to treat myself.
The first version for review is below, but jump to the next blog post to see the second version which expands on this.

Reality bites. Project planning and back to the drawing board.

We are now in week 6 of the module and at the final, crucial stages of thinking about our project plans and preparing for our first assignments. In true Sam fashion I had loads of ideas and thought about lots of different topics. Part of this module is about thinking and creating out loud, so here's some of the thoughts and processes that I have been through so far.

Phase 1: Initial thoughts (aka: lots of excitement and creativity but all over the place)

Originally I was focused on inclusion as a theme, mainly because a lot of the work I do is based around inclusion - and how we help people become a part of something, or make sure that we don't exclude. 

Power: In particular I am fascinated by power. So I thought about doing something that focused on power and inclusion. I talk alot about power dynamics in training especially as many of the topics I deliver are sensitive, and I work with volunteers and young people, so power is important. Power is about making the language we use accessible and the way we approach our relationships. but it's also about giving people power to take action in their own right.  I think openness and power has some links to identity but also acceptance, whether it's academic/non-academic/age/gender/experience/disciplines

Changing relationships:I also had thoughts around creating a new discipline (innovation) and whether there were ways that the informal (non-academic) can influence the formal (academic). This has a direct link to something I want to do, and also links to implementation. In the charity/youth work field, there is no such thing as trainer training or qualifications in many of the subject areas we become experts in. So for example, my peer network and I talk to each other a lot about values based training especially in safeguarding. I would love to create a kind of open studio for us to develop resources together and share our expertise more widely and openly. Thus not only helping other practitioners, but also changing culture and teh way that people think about the subject area. I think our approach is already innovative, but by creating something open and online. Does a discipline/education/field have to start in academia?

The journey:Journeys through openness started to fascinate me too following a couple of tweets with George Veletsianos (the author of one of the papers I read whom I exchanged some tweets with.) and some of discussions about what we do, I started thinking about journeys. So here I am thinking about are there routes to openness, and do different disciplines afford different routes? Therefore how do decide on the best approach? So just like doing needs and people analysis in training, can we tailor an approach for different people?

Phase 2: 3 potentials topics.... (28th October and thought I was doing well!)

I then shared with my tutor group three potentials areas where I had ideas, in order to ask comments and get some feedback in what direction to go (below is the exert from the forum)

1. Bursting the bubble: Building digital networks that improve professional practice. Here I was thinking about how networks actually inform and develop practice. In particular I wanted to focus on this idea of making sure you have diversity of voice (filter bubble) and so your network has many voices, or at least you know how to chose the ones that will actively challenge and help you develop. There might also be something about how you measure that effectiveness (I am not sure that you can 100%, but so far there is a lot of anecdotal evidence about this but I am not sure there is so much research on outcomes/outputs). (As Louise is doing something about communities of practice then I might move this down my list

2. Seeing the tree from the woods: discoverability of non-academic Open educational resources. In this I was thinking about inclusion as welll as innovation and implementation. In my professional life I am non-academic, and I think that when you look for resources, then academic resources trump non-academic. This is probably because this is not a priority for, for example, charitable organisations. So this one was about recognising the dominance of academia, and considering how to get heard. There are a few ways that this could be honed to be more specific too.

3. Journeying the open landscape : can blogging lead to academic publishing for the non-academic scholar. Back on my non-academic thing again. I am really interested in the different journeys that digital scholars take, and also how people develop. I found a blog post as a starting point, and this is something that I think that I want to do as a practitioner....I think again this could have links to inclusion innovation and implementation

I had pretty much settled on the third option, as it linked to this idea of journeys, and my creative part of my brain was thinking about the imagery of journeys and how it would make a great little project artefact, with things like 'what to wear' for identity, 'what to pack' for tools, 'travelling companions' for building your network etc.

Phase 3: journeys of a digital scholar (or trying to go around the world in 84 days)  

So is started to flesh out my ideas, and considered my approach.

Postcards from a digital scholar"  From theory to practice:Blogging as a foundation for digital scholarship .My theme would be implementation, and basically my plan is to blog my way through the project/module, picking up on each of the themes that are suggested along the way in the module, with a particular focus on blogging and my practice/experience of blogging. My initial thoughts are that there is a lot of information out there about blogging, and this approach is not necessarily new, but if I want to improve my own practice then I need to review the research and practice there is, and reflect on what that means for my own practice and actually do it.

Therefore my artifact would probably be a 'journey planner' of some of the key considerations of using and implementing blogging, (for a practitioner who is not connected to a learning institution)  and I am thinking of a multimedia approach. (4th November 2014)

Now hear, let this be a lesson to you.....

I started to look at potential research and resources, and had got a few good suggestions and ideas from my fellow students. However I was starting to find it difficult to find exactly what I wanted. I then sat down on the 6th November and did a project timetable, with key dates and the actual number of days that I would be able to commit to the module and complete assignments. I realised that I was probably aiming too high, trying too hard and potential not going to have the time to cover what I wanted to. The module materials are quite good in suggesting that you think 'realistically' about what you can accomplish. Although I was still interested in my area, I just didn't have the time to learn and research a whole new subject area. 

I contacted my tutor and had a discussion about this and my proposal for a new idea, based on existing knowledge and an area of work that would also benefit from my final artifact. It was really important at this stage to make that decision and to be aware that my intended project was way out of scope for what could be realistically completed. 

So here's me telling my fellow students...and I will talk about my new project shortly.

          

Degrees of openness - identity, networks and visualisations

Maintaining a presence

One of the questions asked around degrees of openness was whether we ‘maintained’ a social media presence. This in itself is an interesting question, as ‘maintained’ suggests that I am creating my persona. Now most of us at first thought would probably say ‘no’. As it suggest some form of narcissism or manipulation. However we do, do this everyday, as I have mentioned in a previous post. What we wear, how we speak, where we go, the groups we join are all part of creating ‘brand me’ (it’s a new buzzword which I credit Dave Coplin as I heard it from him first). 

So I think that I probably do maintain my identity. After all, I choose what pictures I am going to use on my profile, the background etc. On Twitter I choose hat to retweet and what to favourite – and at times there has been stuff that I find interesting, but that I haven’t ‘favourited’ because it might be just be a little too challenging.

Because my presence, isn’t just about me is it? It’s about those I have connected with too. And they deserve my trust and respect. So how to manage personal space in an online environment? And should I? (Thoughts on the back of a virtual postcard please!). So, sometimes I will post boring stuff like where I am going and what I am doing (although, it’s not often I post what I am having for tea). We network online because we want to feel connected. If you are my friend on Facebook (and I am afraid that’s only for family and friends/colleagues who I have a close connection with, or one or two old uni friends who make me smile), then you will be able to tell when I am writing an essay or home alone, as I post more often! I guess it’s because I want to feel connected. So I guess I use Facebook for personal space, whereas I use Twitter for more ‘social’ space.

Networks and visualisations

One of the tasks this week has been to explore visualisations, and what they might tell us about our networks, or not. I love a good picture so found this fun.

mentionmapp. This app visualises your networks, which is kind of interesting, but it only does it over a period of time. 

The idea is great, as you can then click in to look at the networks of your networks. It could be a really useful tool to show other practitioners how you are connecting, and how links are made.

Twitonomy

This needs a page all to itself! But it was interesting to look at some of the data and graphics around my use of twitter. Apparently I tweet about 5 times a day. I was

interested in the graphs that show who I retweet, mention and talk to as this shows maybe some of the more proactive relationships in my network, or maybe those people I find most interesting/useful.

Good to see that my work hashtag #scoutsafe is the one I have used most (I definitely need to get batter at the hashtag, as I am starting to realise how useful they can be from a data perspective)

I was intrigued by the 'times I tweet', which show that Wednesday is my peak day, but also probably highlight the patterns of internet use over the day (peaking at lunchtimes!) and show when I am asleep! I guess all of these analytics, especially the follows and the retweets could be useful if I was trying to improve my 'presence'. It's a lot of data to think about.

Just so you know...I rescinded the permissions to access my data after using them.....

Am I a digital scholar?

For a pragmatic reflector, I am spending a lot of time this week thinking. Not so much action. The first question I have been pondering is whether or not I am a scholar. I have struggled with this question throughout my master's journey, as a lot of online education, focuses on formal education.I guess I am an informal educator. I work with adults, and sometime young people, outside of academic institutions. I need to get over this, as although a great many of the approaches and the research are about 'academics', they are not the only 'scholars' inhabiting the network In fact some might say they were the minority.

A Digital scholar according to the great wiki is someone who uses "digital evidence, methods of inquiry, research, publication and preservation to achieve scholarly and research goals"

Martin Weller http://www.slideshare.net/mweller/ten-lessons-in-digital-scholarship

So. I spend a lot of time online. Connecting with others. Researching. Reading. 'Discovering' new things.There isn't a lot of formal learning for my area of practice (or at least I haven't found it yet, but I am a bit of a hybrid) and therefore if I don't seek out new knowledge for myself, then there would be few other places to go. I then use that knowledge in my day to day work and in developing the resources for my organisation. So there you go. On almost a day to day basis I am learning online, integrating this into my current knowledge and experience in order to apply practically to my work and the training that I deliver. However the 'digital' part at the moment is mainly acquisition, and participation through networking with others. I haven't yet 'created'. I guess you could call this blog a creation, but really it's just a means to direct my reflections is an organised way.

Actually. I may have been tough on myself there. I am in factor a digital learner. My Masters has been completed through online methods, with very little face to face contact (I met my tutor four times on the last module - that was nice). So as a student I have been learning, researching, applying and creating in a digital environment. It seems therefore a good place to be, as I am undertaking my final masters module then, that I am pondering how I move from a digital learner to a digital trainer/teacher/scholar?

Identity and openness

Last week kicked off on Twitter with Tim Berners Lee talking about a new model for privacy on the internet. The discussion focussed on the need for people to take control and ownership of data, and that the fear of big data and being spied on has make us distrusting......

...therefore do we need to be more comfortable in sharing information and does there need to be better ways of protecting our privacy? 

Of course, when apps request potential access to your data, without telling you what they might use it for, it’s easy to see why people might be distrustful. I was always taught that data protection meant not collecting data that you don’t need, and telling people what you are going to do with that data ( see the recent Whisper stories for an example of companies approaches to privacy and changing terms and conditions).

We often don’t pay much attention to the permissions requests when we sign up to new services. There is a growing distrust of what companies are doing with our data, and I wonder if that has a knock on effect to our ideas of identity and openness?

At the other end of the extreme Pyschology today published an article on why we over share online and the disinhibition effect. The article talks about how anonymity and invisibility cause people to behave in very different ways. It ends however with a bit about authority and how people can feel there is more equality online so they feel more empowered to say the things they may not say offline. I wonder if that is true when it comes to peer creation and peer review?

Most e-safety training starts with asking people if they have googled themselves, or what kind of digital footprint they are creating. (For the record, my take is that we should create positive footprints online, and therefore I encourage adults and young people to use the net creatively, actively and positively : if they want to). Which moves me on to perceptions of others. Most humans worry about what others think of them, even those who say they don’t. When asking a group of teenagers about freedom online this weekend, they were very clear that they had freedom, but that with that freedom comes responsibility; to act appropriately , but also to be called into account if you do something wrong. They also told me how they managed their media. So if they were friends with family on Facebook, then they self-edit what they post there.

But what does this mean for the developing, networked professional? As this week on H818 is about Openness and Privacy, it seems right to be thinking about what this means to me. In the “offline world” I approach people, tasks and work in very different ways, depending on my colleagues, the audience or the environment.  It’s a bit like deciding what clothes to put on. Different audiences require different approaches, in order to engage at the right level (I am thinking about power here), be culturally sensitive, and to communicate the right messages. I am pretty sure this is true when it comes to digital scholarship too. You have to figure out which are the groups you need to join, how to communicate and which communities/resources/publishers are the ones that you need. But where do you start if you are outside of academia. This is something that I will be investigating.

In fact, these thoughts of identity pervade all aspects of our life, whether it’s getting a job, a partner, or a publishing deal. Some of the things that I am involved in outside of work, are partly as a result of what I do in work. I am lucky that I have found a passion in my work, which means I want to part of the bigger debate and I want to be an active voice in making change. However, does my involvement in these things impact my work? I am after all a spoke-person for my organisation, but it doesn’t mean that I am always talking on behalf of my organisation. Hopefully, given that we are values-based, there won’t be too much conflict, but I have become acutely aware of this, and just as I wrestle with my identity and openness as an online practitioner, so I wrestle with my identity and openness as an “offline” practitioner.  And this takes me back to the end of the last blog post. Sometimes, we cannot decide what we share or how open we are, as our jobs (think teachers using Facebook) or circumstances (say foster parents) tell us otherwise.

“My job does not define me”. This was one of my take-away notes following our staff conference, where we were talking about collaboration and team-working across teams and finding and developing expertise. But in order for people to understand this, they need to engage with me, talk to me, work with me, and see my creations. And I think this is the same journey that one must take as an online practitioner. I will be defined by what people see, what I do and how I engage.  

I want to end this post with this fab video from iDea. I think it's a great poem and visual about collaboration and some of the questions that I have (despite me not really be part of that generation)