Crisis? What crisis ?!

“Technology is a wonderful invention when it works! However, not so good when it doesn’t!” quote Emily Harris November 26^th 2010.

Ever had one of them weeks when you just know the gods or some higher being has it in for you? You know when Jupiter has aligned with Mars or something? Welcome to my  -  “the week that was !”

I should have known it was an omen on Monday morning when my hair straightners  blew up. Actually they didn’t blow up they sort of fell apart and dropped to pieces. As every dancer knows, a dancer just can’t function without her hair straightners!
And then how come when you pack your case to come home for the weekend there’s plenty of spare room but it doesn’t all go back in the case when you come to pack to travel back to London and you desperately need to fit that extra pair of boots  in and your woollies because they’ve forecast snow?
And why have they not built escalators and ramps at Kings Cross station and instead have 3 flights of stairs to manoeuvre with a case, computer and 2 bags?And why, oh why, when you are so close to a deadline for your first module of your degree course and need to get some blogging done does your computer crash and die ?

I have heard many people use the saying, “A person makes their own luck!” Where on earth does that saying come from and if you can make it I need to know how to make some pretty quick. Trying to write reflective blogs and journals and comment on other peoples blogs is pretty difficult with a dead PC.

Not that I ever have any  great connection with my lap top anyway. I use a  t mobile dongle  and  depending where I’m living at any particular point  can vary to the quality of the connection I get.  At my student flat in Sidcup the best place to network or do emails was sat on the loo as that was the best connection – in the bathroom! But when you’re on the move you cannot always connect to a landline so the dongle it has to be. 

Perhaps it was the entries in my journal for the beginning of the week that caused its malfunction  as I reflected on my life experiences this week in graphic details  in my journal and the most traumatic experience of my life so far – signing on for Jobseekers Allowance in an inner city office !! Not for the faint hearted or those with a delicate disposition I can tell you. This opened my eyes to the difficulties faced by the unemployed – it is depressing, dehumanising, degrading and disillusioning. I have enough material in my reflective journal for a full episode of “Little Britain” from this one experience alone and one day I may just share it !!

Oh, and guess where my passport details and the application form I need to print off for an audition on Friday are? Yes, of course, in my e mails !

So what on earth has any of this to do with my BAPP course? Well, it not only gave me plenty of life experiences to reflect on in my journal and record my thoughts and feelings of the 4 days events this week  but it also made me realise just how important my PC is in my life, just how dependant I am on being  able to access my emails, the internet and Facebook  not only for my professional life but for  my personal and social life. I realised just how much I rely on emails to communicate.
 
Quoting from the reader (Siemens, G 2004 on Connectivism) – “Over the last 20 years, technology has reorganised how we live, how we communicate and how we learn”. This is very true for me , the internet has become a very real part of my everyday life, I just didn’t realise how much until it was sick.
Having no computer for 3 days made me realise just how relevant and important my on line life is to me. My main source of accessing information is the internet and my main form of communicating with my agencies and applying for jobs is by email. I was almost bereft!

Of course I had my “blackberry” so all was not lost  - I can actually access my emails and apply for jobs and keep in touch with agencies, I can social network and text friends and family  and even look up anything I want on the internet via my phone but blogging was the difficulty on a 3ins x 2ins screen and accessing my reflective journal and updating it and of course printing important documents for my audition. I’ve learned that without the aid of all the technologies at my fingertips my scope is extremely limited. Fortunately for me it was a quick fix virus problem and my trusty Sony Vio was back on its feet by Saturday and I have my on line life back!

Thinking about critical reflection, it was also a good example of how reflecting in my journal was an evolving personal awareness and how these miniature crises in my life made me feel and my emotions  at the time. It made me put things into perspective and what seemed like mountains became molehills. My journal is almost like talking to a therapist or priest. I was able to recount the intimate details of my experiences through my journal and through this process find meaning and understanding.

Tufnell and Crickmay ( 2004) describe the importance of being engaged with reflection,
“It is through the sensuous world of the body, through our eyes, ears, skin, muscles and organs that we see, feel and respond to all that happens. The body is the ground from which all knowing of the world begins. It is within our bodies, in our instinctual and sensory responses, that we discover the changing field of what is happening to us. In the rush and pressure of our everyday lives we easily become numbed, cut off from our bodies. Without a sense of the body , of sensation and feeling we lose connection to what is around and within us, to the immediate and present moments in our lives.”

In the grand scheme of things my crises were quite trivial but this to me demonstrates that with our own reflective journeys of life experiences we can make sense of ourselves in the world. We tell and retell episodes both minor and major and discussing these and sharing with others we learn and develop.  The significance of these experiences was it made me think about how we view things. We are individually influenced by our moralistic, cultural and socialistic backgrounds. The way I saw each event as it happened is very different to how I view them now. I can see that how I interpreted each event as it happened was in a manner that was consistent with my emotional frame of mind at the time. But how could I have seen it differently? I was rushing to catch a train and several things happened to cause me stress and my emotional state was I saw them as great big issues.

Putting things into context,
(a) my straightners had been on their last legs for months and it was only a matter of time before they “fell apart”, so I should have replaced them weeks ago, I’ll just have to put up with the “kinky” hair until I can afford new ones. No one is going to die because I don’t have straightners.
(b) I have to learn to travel lighter and not take so much with me. I have been travelling the East Coast route for 3½ years and know there are stairs to encounter at Kings Cross so I should ensure I don’t have all that baggage to carry.
(c)  I need to get a paid job asap to avoid having to repeat the experience of signing on again and I now appreciate the plight of the unemployed!

I noticed now how to go back over the things that have happened this week I can view them differently. My mind set and my emotions are different.

Lewin, Kolb, Gardner, Honey and Munford help us explore how we can be  “active and persistent thinkers”. Dewey asks us to be “active, persistent and carefully consider.”

Analysing life experiences and choices provides the foundation for our future learning. Developing the ability to think critically enhances our academic writing and presentations and our ability to argue convincingly. The reflective person has the advantage of being able to cultivate these skills by taking responsibility for their disappointments and seek ways to enhance their professional competence.

Having a clearer idea of who we are as a person and a professional highlights our strengths and areas of challenge. Reflection requires that a professional can critically reflect on their decisions and behaviours.
“Reflection is indicative of deep learning and where teaching and learning activities are missing only surface learning can result” (Biggs 1999 in King 2002).

 
I have been blogging and reading other blogs and making comments frantically since getting my PC back. Alan Durrant advised, “I think it is really worthwhile to read and comment to Blogs to help develop critical thinking. Blogging your ideas and then commenting builds a dialogue with yourself and others and like any conversation has the potential to build deeper understanding and insights.”

 This was probably my other crises of the week. Being totally honest here, as I reflected in my journal, I often felt when reading blogs that I was reading the course “Reader” verbatum over and over  again and I went into total panic that I had totally misunderstood the requirement of the first module as others seemed to work their way one by one through each task quoting the “Reader” where as I was trying to apply the models that were in the “Reader” to everyday life experiences either personal or professional .

 Adesola said in one of her blog posts  “Positioning of Self”, that the tasks are “experiences” and that it is not like “hide and seek” or a “treasure hunt” where the treasure is hidden and we as students find it with the BA (Hons) as the prize!” I was not thinking of them as a list of  tasks  to be completed like maths exercises in a text book rather that I used experiences as a basis to look at how I learn from my experiences through networking as a professional and using the models to try and see how I learn? 

I would be interested what others think!?

I think this is probably why I thought people’s “Inquiry” blogs were much more interesting to read as they were what individuals really felt passionate about  - real issues that made you think  and have an opinion about to comment and debate and it was interesting from the point of view each said something about the individual person. You learned something about each person and what their goals are as a professional  and that made you think about your own hopes and aspirations in comparison.

I always engage with something that sparks my interest or thought processes  like Stephies blog about discipline, or Melissa’s about American dancers, or Ross’ about the spine or I read a newspaper or magazine article, something happens in the news or I have a personal experience that evokes a response and a debate. Such is the content of my own blogs, reflection on something that has engaged my interest  that I think improves my understanding of professional networking and reflective writing. Issues and events that I thought others with similar interests would like to share. I have read the module notes and the “Reader” over and over and over again and thought, ok yes I think I’ve covered that in my blog of................... , I’ve considered that there ......  etc, but this week I really don’t know !? Maybe I am just in total crisis here ? Help me out !

Most of the research I could find on reflective writing using technology was in the nursing, health and social education field.
The students were given a set of tasks to complete via blog postings and given specific instructions. They shared feedback through a comments section following every posting and instructors gave comment on each blog entry.     

http://www.springerlink.com/content/jh037p741n254775/

Interestingly for me in my crisis mode, one of the criticisms was that because students were not required to formally respond there was not enough evidence to form an impact on the student’s ability to reflect. Some students were more active than others and some put off posting so there was limited potential for peer interaction.

Looking at this course I wondered if there was any indication of your success or failure on your ability to reflect from the number of followers you had and the number of comments on your blogs. Certainly some students had many comments from tutors and other students, others very little and some none at all. Despite my efforts to engage I had not found anyone to interact with. I’ll be really honest here, it makes you wonder if anyone has read anything you’ve actually blogged!

It reminded me of Facebook and teenagers who measure their popularity from the number of “hits” they get and the number of “friends” they have in their directory. Perhaps Adesola’s reminder that we are nearing the deadline for the first module sent me into my final crisis of the week but I do feel I am swimming against the tide a little as I have had very little feedback or peer interaction. I think this is a very crucial part of our learning process and the reflective models we have read about.

I came across another interesting article that didn’t necessarily agree critical reflection is always a good thing – this was based on Meirow’s  Critical Reflection (1990)  who said, “perspective transformation is the process of becoming critically aware – that adults are better motivated to better understand the meaning of their experience.” The article went on to suggest that reflection on its own doesn’t lead automatically to integrative perspectives. In a real world it could lead to self-justification, self-indulgence and self-pity. Without feedback and criticism it does become very self –indulgent – we are not learning because we don’t know where we are going wrong or could improve. Extending evaluative feedback provides the learner to continue to think about the topic, pointing out other possibilities to encourage additional thinking. Dialogue with one’s self through experiences is very useful but deeper learning I think can only come with feedback.

Alan said, “Do try and keep up the blogging and commenting even if it does seem artificial at times.” I think perhaps, and this is just my opinion, that people are just ticking off the tasks and not engaging in conversation via the comments as I have not had one response to any of the comments I have made to then engage in dialogue so I feel that my comments have been artificial, they’re merely comments not opening up discussion. Does this make sense to anyone else? In lay mans terms, are we not just working through the tasks like exercises in a book and therefore it loses its true meaning!?  [For example task 3d – choose 10 other blogs randomly to comment on and I’ve completed the task!? ]

As a dancer I am used to constant critique. In classes, rehearsals and auditions we are constantly corrected, criticised, praised and given feedback as we are learning a piece of dance and this is the only way  you can analyse where  you need to improve, where you are and which direction you may need to change to. Without feedback and input from others how do we know where we are and whether we are learning !?

I think I may be nearing the end of my crisis today!


References:

Establishing Professional Practice - Module Handbook for WBS3002    - Middlesex University 

Reflective Practices - A reader complied by Adesola Akinleye (2010)


Tufnell, M & Crickmay, C L 2004 A widening field.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/jh037p741n254775/                                 

Atherton JS (2010) Learning and Teaching; Criticcal Reflection [On line] UK -

http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/critical1.htm