Rocking all over my mind

my brain last friday looked a little like this I think - i was ready to pop!

So, I changed my mind. Which meant a whole new set of brainstorming activities. On the plane over to the Isle of Man I therefore wrote about ten pages worth of maps and scribbles to try and get everything out. (The man sat next to me must have thought be some kind of psycho as I kept flipping pages backwards and forwards. )

For me the act of writing things down, helps me to take control and organise my thoughts (there is that power motive again!). When writing assignments this often means physical mindmapping, where I write on lots of bits of paper then cross things off or  screw up the bits that aren't really relevant. Learning by doing you see - I need some tangibility (that's probably a made up word). 

So as being a Networked practitioner is all about trying out new tools, I have done a bit of mind mapping. All of this is meant to help me get to my project overview/plan. Don't worry, I will be sharing that too - and hoping for some comments and ideas!

Stage one - the overview of project

At this first point I was trying to think about the reasons behind and why volunteers don't use social media. Despite the physical constraints, like not having access or skills, I felt there was an overwhelming amount of psychological reasons. This is partly because the media tells us a lot about the scary bad stuff going on, and because e-safety has always been about sexual perpetrators and strangers coming to abduct your kids.  In some ways I was starting backwards with this, as I know what my advice is, so I needed to unpick some of the reasons and link it to the advice. 

Key words
I then went back and tried to link up some of the keywords, especially as they related to topics that we have already started to explore in the module.

As you can see, there are some links starting to form with some of the core areas, which include things like identity, power etc.

Psychological barriers
I then wanted to brainstorm some more and think a bit about these barriers through the idea of openness making you vulnerable. And I think this is the key point. Openness means that you have to take risks, face fear, be trusting...and to do that you need to feel empowered - or in control - or (new word here) self-efficacy - in other words it's what you believe you can do.

There are probably loads of other nodes that I could add on here but I like the idea of these three core barriers around identity, safety and confidence which link into the issues of fear, power and trust. You will also see that I have started looking out how the values of scouting help to empower, but suggesting to volunteers that it's part of what we already do and therefore if we journey into the open landscape, we can following the same values and paths.

Next stop, first draft of the project plan....will be needing your help.

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.

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?