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.

Nature versus nurture – exploring old school reports

The last few weeks I have been reminiscing quite a lot about the past and discussing how early experiences may have shaped me as a person. This is something you do a lot as you get older (so I am told) and maybe wiser (as you tend to reflect more as you have more stuff in your brain).

Watching the Horizon programme on Monday about male and female brains prompted all sorts of discussions regarding gender and the role of nurture in shaping our perceptions. Something that we talked about during my last Open University module ED841 – Understanding Children’s Development and Learning. We are also moving house soon, so I have been rummaging around my old boxes and finding schools reports that described qualities I still have.

I like people. There’s no debating that I am an ‘extrovert’ who draws their energy from other people (although, it should be noted that I do pretty good at the relaxing, quiet, mindfulness stuff too). But I am at my best with others. My father was a shop keeper in my early years, and we moved a lot. That is by the age of ten I think I had lived in about seven or eight different houses. Therefore, I grew up around lots of different people and had to move schools a few times during those early years. This had to have had some kind of impact on my social ability. Also, when I was very young (infant up to about 6 or 7), I was constantly going to see an ear specialist. They thought I might be partially deaf. Actually, looking back, I think that I just learned to switched off when people didn’t interest me, or chose to hear what I wanted for my own benefit. Or maybe, I just wanted to listen to what was happening and take it all in. Most people I know today wouldn’t call me a ‘quiet’ person. But when you look back at my school reports they often say quiet and thoughtful. I was obviously taking it all in ready for the future.

In the last three years I have been doing my Masters with the Open University. I started because after nearly ten years in the pub world, I had started a job where I needed to use my brain again. Best decision ever made, and I think I do better now than I did as an undergrad. However, when re-visiting my past reports, it was interesting to see that actually, I may have always had the potential, it just got lost along the way.

So here’s some of the highlights from year 2 and 3 (that year 8 and 9 in new money!). Oh – and pretty much every subject says ‘enthusiastic and hard-working’. I would like to think that I have carried that on into my adult life!

English year 2 – “Samantha appears to enjoy the subject and is always willing to participate in oral work. Her writing shows response to language and sensitivity of approach although at times she needs to be more methodical in sorting out her ideas.” It’s true. Sometimes I have so many ideas that it takes a while to ‘sort them out’. That still happens. If you could see my dining table when I write essays its pages of lists, to ty and decide what is relevant and what not. I like to think that I am better at this now.

English year 3 – “Samantha works with enthusiasm in both oral and written activities. I was particularly pleased with her first attempt at argumentative writing, a difficult concept to grasp.” Glad I learnt this early on. I like to be able to see all sides of the argument. It helps have a balanced approach.

RE year 3 – “ Samantha has a quiet but intelligent approach to her work. She always achieves a high standard.” My RE teacher was a definite role model. One of many women in my life who have exuded a positive a peaceful presence. I think that helped in developing my abilities.

Design and technology year 3 – “Samantha is a very able student who achieves a good deal of success in this subject.  She generates a range of intelligent solutions to a design problem and successfully realised them into three dimensional artefacts.” I really like this one. One thing that I am most definitely is pragmatic. My partner would probably not agree that I am logical, but that’s because he get the ‘home’ version of Sam. Also – I do the DIY at home, so this was obviously in the making.

Art and design – “Samantha works with imagination and enthusiasm. She has developed a strong and individual drawing style.” I like this one as it talks about my strong and individual style. Yep. That’s me. I am not prone to doing what people expect me to do, and remember my Math teacher once bemoaning the fact that I got the answers right, but didn’t do it in the way I was meant to!

English (end of year) – “Samantha has a very positive attitude towards all aspects of the course and her literary answers show depth of understanding of the text being studied. In oral activities samantha’s contributions illustrate her perception of the topics under discussion.” The repetition of strength in my oral approach is interesting I think. I need others to help me to formulate my ideas, and like talking to people. For introverts this is very frustrating, but there is something about the social aspect of learning that still resonates within.

Phys ed – “ Samantha always works with enthusiasm and is keen to learn new skills, which she masters quite well and then used actively. She is an effective trampoline coach, where she has the ability to point to the most relevant mistakes.” OK. I was rubbish at 

PE. Not a sporty person at all. I got a lot of enthusiasm in these reports. I particular like this one though, as I think it shows the start of my future career as a manager, or my ability to spot where there are areas that need development, or need to be tackled.

RE – “Samantha always does her best work. She expresses facts clearly and argues logically. She has shown a sensitive appreciation of the issue we have studies and has obviously thought about them at considerable depth. She is never content with a superficial answer.” You can see that I loved my RE teacher! I think the content that we engaged in, often about culture, beliefs and people, allowed me to explore the topic more. But particularly, I like the last line. I am still not content with a superficial answer, so be careful when you answer my ‘why’ questions. Life goes deeper than superficiality.