Degrees of openness

Here we are again – identity, privacy, openness. The Networked Practitioner is cleverly taking us through an investigative and reflective journey to think about our own practice and where we want to be.  I have done a lot of researching this week, and networking, but may be not so much reflecting. For any of you Scouting people also reading my blog, this is definitely learning by doing. But maybe my journey will help you with yours.

The first task of the week asked us to think about our own stances on openness in regards to publishing work as a ‘digital scholar’ (see previous post). I have never published anything other than my blog and twitter feed, so I have no idea what my feelings about publishing only in open-access journals would be. At this point I think I would just be amazed to be published anywhere! I think that given my passionate desire to change the way that fellow practitioners do things, and that my ‘practice’ sits in informal education, that I would probably say that I would opt for open access. I will let you know if I ever do get published!!

So, what about sharing learning material openly? We were asked a couple of questions around this area of sharing our own material. Would we share unfinished work; and would we share immediately and openly. The answer to this will depend on what you are sharing, your profession and your field. As a tutor group it has been interesting to acknowledge that for some, their material is their income, and so sharing openly may impact their finances. While for others, their job dictates that what they create, belongs to the organisation for which they created it. I had not really considered intellectual property rights before, and it’s not a discussion I have had in my work life. (I will be going back to work next week and checking this out’.

But am I worried about my intellectual property. After all, the whole of life is a mash up and I am sure that we could never reference everybody who may have influenced our ways of thinking. Ordinarily when I create resources for work, I have no desire to put my name to them, as that’s not important and there is a bigger picture (plus, it’s what I am paid to do) But if I am trying to build my practitioner status, is it important for people to attribute me? Naturally I want to inspire people, but the worry is that in sharing my ideas and creations, someone my take that and make money out of it. I think this is why the creative commons approach is important. I never really got it before, but it’s a way to say, ’here you go, here’s what I created and you can use it too….as long as you don’t make money from it’!

The other thing to think about is also the sensitivity of your creations. Working in the safeguarding field, there are times when we share and create confidential material, which would not be appropriate to share openly and out of context. And then there is sharing work that isn’t finished yet….and I think that is for more closed networks unless you are working collaboratively to create stuff.

Time. It’s not really a resource, but it’s one thing that shapes what and how we do things. Thus for most people things they can do easily are more likely to happen. I am a dreamer a times, but ultimately pragmatic. I think that building things into the daily routine makes it easier. Thus if publishing and sharing finds a natural place in the everyday, I think it would make to easier. That’s not to say that some effort isn’t required. And when I really think about it. It I can be better networked to my fellow practitioners, and they can help in collaboration, then ultimately we might be able to co-create resources more quickly than finding the time to do it alone.

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)

My day out

Learning and Skills Conference

On Tuesday I took myself off to Olympia, and tried not to be tempted by sneaking in to the Doctor Who exhibition. I have belonged to the Learning and Skills group for nearly 2 years now, and I find it is a real lifeline for my personal development and work life. I was reminded as I sat there at the end of the day, that whenever the question comes up at the end of my appraisal about any development needs, I always express adamantly that I do not need to go on any courses. In fact, attending a conference like this is better than a course. I get to share with my peers and be motivated and inspire, and developed. Far more powerful than any course for me. The Key message from the day is to listen to what people want and to know your audience.

Anyhow, here’s my summary, or sound bites if you will, of the key points I took away from the day, and I am sure there are many others!

Opening – Professor Chris Bones

A fantastic and engaging opening. Chris amused and challenged us.

• The challenge of the digital age, is knowing where to find the answer.
• The academic case study is dead!
• Now you must be an authority on the process and not on the content
• Old world solutions are still being used for new world solutions
• We need to become leaders of finding the solution
• Link learning development with organisation strategy and goals
• End of the heroic leader – now it’s all about collaboration
• Technology doesn’t build skills or change behaviour

Chris resonated with my own experience, as my job involves enabling volunteers to find their own solutions, and truly believe that it is only when everyone is involved in the process, that you get proper buy in and work toward team goals and solutions. In fact the last few weeks have been very enlightening for me personally, as I realise that my approach is very ‘of the moment’ and ‘forward thinking’. Maybe this is because, having spent ten years as a pub manager, that’s how I used to work. We had to be a team and work together, and the only way for people to learn was to experience it for themselves(even if I was in the office just in case!).

Cathy Moore then took us through her well developed approach to scenario building – which reminded me of the build you own adventure books Fighting Fantasy, that I used to spend hours reading as a kid. Cathy’s tip’s can be found on the Elearning Blueprint site. She can explain it much better than me! The key thing here is about making it real, and once again, making the learner the centre, making the decisions. Again this resonated with my own experiences, as I hate created case studies or scenarios. I was inspired to reconsider this and put some structure behind my content. Cathy also introduced us to TWINE, software that can help us to create the different routes through the story, and link them up in an online environment (Like build your own adventure)

The most exciting (only just) session of the day was Julie Wedgwood. Julie spoke with ease and excitement about her experience supporting business in developing User Generated Content.(UGC) There were lots of little nuggets to be had here, and lots of lessons to learn. My head was buzzing at the end, with lots of ideas about how to adopt the approach for my context.

Basically (and this is a poor paraphrase of a fantastic story) she was/is working with a client who adopted the UGC approach, however it was so successful it created too much information and content. So they decided to filter it so that people only got the important content, but this still didn’t work, as now they knew that the content they were getting was good content. So they have created a very successful content curation system, from which many lessons can be learned.

In the first instance they set up a listening service to hear what people were saying, they then appointed theme curators and a curated content framework.

The categories for curation included relevance, review time (how long it would take the reader), shelf life snippets (what’s in it for me). Regular round ups tell people what’s new, highlight testimonies from others or outstanding stories.Getting others involved makes it more relevant and based on real life experiences that are useful. It helps to create networks and true experienced based knowledge. By getting others to become content providers they become part of the process and involved in the cycle.

“Capturing knowledge in the business, for the business”.

The learning point for me here is the need to take one step at a time when open the floodgates. Think systematically. There are hints of the kind of ideas we already want to foster, so it’s a delight to learn some lessons. Better to be a lock than a dam!

• Data overload causes learning disengagement
• 70/20/10 model
• Shakespeak (which allows you to have online or of the moment voting straight to your presentation)
• need to teach people the skills needed to filter information
• Nicholas Carr – what the internet does to our brains
• 15 minutes every day for personal development.

The final session of the day, I naughtily swapped groups and went to the learning debate – What matters most in workplace L&D? Led by Charles Jennings, Andy Tedd and Donald Clark .

Some snippets……

• Attitudes change behaviour
• When a big wave comes you have 2 choices, run away or put on your swimming gear
• Social media as a weapon of mass distraction
• Learning needs to be built on real life needs
• Learning needs practice, conversation and reflection – there is never enough time given to reflection
• Corporate life forces a realistic approach and you need to convince senior management that what you want to do fits with their strategic direction – speak their language
• Learning needs to engage with people in their intellectual and cultural context and level
• Are old learning theories still relevant? Should we be looking for new, tangible theories based on scientific studies? (how the brain works, social and cultural theory)

The closing points…….

• Less really is more
• Make it as easy to learn as possible
• Think about what else people are doing in the day

Also, if you have an hour to spare or want some background listening, listen to Donald’s speech ‘Don’t Lecture me’. I love this guy!