Reflective theory - how I learn



Today I have been looking at how I learn and Kolbs learning cycle.

Kolb says that ideally this process represents a learning cycle or spiral where the learner 'touches all the bases', ie., a cycle of experiencing, reflecting, thinking, and acting. Immediate or concrete experiences lead to observations and reflections. These reflections are then assimilated (absorbed and translated) into abstract concepts with implications for action, which the person can actively test and experiment with, which in turn enable the creation of new experiences.

At first I thought it was hard to tell where I actually enter the cycle as I think we all have a little of all of them in normal practice and not one exclusive single style or preference in exclusion of everything else.

I consider I am a person embedded in my culture, geography and historical time and I have been influenced in my thoughts and opinions by my upbringing, my parents, peers, education and tutors and this all plays an important part  in how I learn and the conclusions I draw from that information and any experiences.

When thinking about making a blog for this course within Web 2.0 technology this was a new experience for me. I had used “My Space” and “Facebook” as social networking sites to keep in touch with friends so had some very limited experience to draw upon but hadn’t explored the possibilities of Web 2.0 or considered the use of technology in promoting myself in a professional sense or keeping a blog specifically designed to develop my professional practice and find my own artistic vision.

Therefore fitting this into Kolbs cycle;

I entered at the “Activist” (Having an experience) stage – this was the experience of setting up my blog.

The second stage was to research Web 2.0 and consider the possibilities it offered looking at the pros and cons and developing my own ideas and opinions on some of these – the “Reflector” (Reviewing the Experience).

The third stage was where I was learning about Web 2.0 and planning and experimenting with various ways of working within it and where I took action and made choices  – the “Theorist”( Learning from the Experience) and the  final stage was where I was planning how to use this to improve my knowledge and skills, reflecting on my thoughts and attitudes on what I had learned throughout stages 1 to 3  and how it could help me develop as  a professional – the “Pragmatist”
(Planning the next steps).  

I have always thought of myself as a Kinaesthetic learner as I am a very practical person and I like to learn hands on through practical experience. I remember at school I was always labelled as a  Kinaesthetic learner.  This is because I am a dancer and I regularly have to learn routines very quickly in classes, auditions and rehearsals and I’ve always been known as someone who can’t sit still for too long before I have to be active. I was particularly into sports at school too.  I do often go for a run to “think” and formulate plans and ideas and blow off any “cobwebs” – I suppose this is how I “reflect”. I often come back from a run full of new ideas I want to try.  

During my research I came across the VAK learning styles self assessment questionnaire and thought it would be interesting to complete it and see what that told me about the way I learn to see if this was any different now to when I assessed it at school.

 http://www.businessballs.com/freematerialsinword/vaklearningstylesquestionnaireselftest.doc

I had to score each statement and then add up the totals for each column to indicate learning dominance. This is supposed to help improve my understanding of myself and my strengths, how I perceive things and the way I relate them to the world around me.

Knowing how to adapt the way you work with others, how you communicate, provide information and learning, how you identify and agree tasks, are the main factors enabling successfully managing and motivating yourself and your career.

The results were;
A 7, B 3 and C 20.

The VAK learning styles explanation suggests people can be divided into three styles;
A :  visual – a preferred learning style for seen or observed things,

B :  auditory – a preferred learning style through listening to the spoken word and
C :  kinaesthetic – a style that has a preference for physical experience.
Some people have a strong preference for a preferred learning style others will have a more even mixture of two or the least common, three styles.

Looking at my own results from the questionnaire I have a strong preference for C – kinaesthetic -  which came as no surprise to me. It is useful to me as it means I have to make the best use of the learning methods which suit my preferred style.

Kinaesthetic learners learn best through a hands on approach and find it hard to sit for long periods and learn best when different activities are structured into their learning pattern as doing the same activity for long periods of time causes the kinaesthetic learner to “switch off”. I can really relate to this analogy and this probably explains why I have had problems learning in the past where the methods have been rigid and auditory. We all need different experiences to learn effectively.

Adesola suggests in her “Reader” that the way in which we learn sculpts what we will be. Using  Kolbs learning cycle as a guide what does my personal learning cycle say about me and does this have an impact  about the way I choose to work. Kinaesthetic intelligence is presumed to predominate in the profiles of athletes, dancers and craft persons.

In my case this appears to be true as my chosen profession is as a performer and in particular a dancer. I have always been a very active person from a young child with, as my mum describes it, an “abundance of energy” which needed to be channelled in some specific direction. This was always through sports and dance and I excelled at both being a competitive swimmer, gymnast and runner as well as a dancer. Even now if I get any spare time I spend it doing physical exercise -  swimming or running, pilates or yoga. Therefore I think it was inevitable I would end up doing something that involved physical exercise of some kind.    

For example the first thing I check out wherever I go is where the nearest pool is, the nearest gym and where I can join some classes either dance, yoga, pilates or fitness classes and where I can run. I run most days at least 5km and this is my “me” time, my “think” time. This is often when I have my most creative thoughts and ideas and where I clear my mind and resume my focus.

I moved back to London last Sunday to board with a family friend whilst I am rehearsing for panto. Hannah lives overlooking the Thames at Rotherhithe and my daily run is along the Thames to Charing Cross and back and I go up to Pineapple Studios every other day to either do ballet, hip hop, jazz, pilates or yoga or to The Place to do contemporary technique classes.

Most students at college thought I was completely bonkers as we had regular 10 or 12 hour days of dance but I also cycled to college every day the 3 miles there and back. I found this very beneficial for me. I always arrived at college ready to start my day feeling awake and alive after the ride in, my muscles were warm and the adrenalin pumping. On the way home it gave me a private reflection time to review my day and I could re focus and get rid of any “gremlins” before I got home. I cycled because I enjoyed it. I have just always loved physical exercise, it’s what I do and who I am so it’s no surprise i’m kinaesthetic.

Today I ran along the Thames path and thought about my panto character and how I could develop her and how she would move and walk and talk and worked on some ad libs as directed. You get some real funny looks as you talk and smile to yourself as you’re running along. I often use the time to learn my lines or lyrics to the i pod as I run along and it can be quite embarrassing when you suddenly realise you’ve been singing out loud. At last nights rehearsal I was appointed dance captain for the company and I reflected on all the choreography we’d done and by the time I got back to Rotherhithe I was happy it was all solid in my head and what I had to work on to develop my character and  improve my own performance. It’s not that I have to move to think but I have to move to think.

John Dewey was interested in experience and saw education as an experiential action. He felt the quality of education was linked to the level of engagement with and consciousness of the experience. He also felt that interaction with the arts led to a unique and valuable experience. He used the term “reflective thought” to talk about ways for us to be aware that we are having an experience, ways to link it to other experiences and ways to find meaning for ourselves.  In other words as far as I can translate that for myself this means “practical experience is important and reflection on that experience helps us to learn from our experiences”.

Today I reflected on yesterday’s rehearsal and how I could improve my performance in the development of my own character and authenticate my character, make her believable. I formulated a plan in my head for how I would play the role, reflecting on the advice given to me by the director, experimenting with different “ad libs” and how to deliver my lines, use my body language.  I recalled watching some of the other actors at the rehearsal and how they made me laugh with their mannerisms and body language and I decided I could experiment with certain “moves” that could work for me. My character is “outrageous” and so I tried to recall all the outrageous characters I’ve seen either on stage or screen or in real life and then take certain characteristics and mould them for myself into my character to make one really wild outrageous one. When working on characterisation I often think of someone I know who fits the description and then over emphasize their traits. I had great fun trying things out for myself and deciding which were suitable. Hannah’s two cats eyed me with great curiosity and interest. My next experience is to go to tonight’s rehearsal and perform them publicly in front of the cast.

So putting this into Kolbs cycle;

1. My experience is yesterday’s rehearsal - Concrete Experience

2. I reflected on how I could improve the character - Reflective Observation

3. Learned from observing others and advice - Abstract Conceptualization

4. I experimented with new ideas - Active Experimentation
                                                                                

                             

By being out in the world and having experiences and reflecting upon them we come across new ideas which means we are learning from those experiences. I think this helps us develop our individuality and enhance our creativity through analysing our own experiences and others and gives us the skills to be confident professionals. We learn to accept new ideas and are open to the ideas of others. This occurs to every person as a result of having experiences in daily living that are not really thought about but reflective thinking is when we consider them and make an intellectual decision about them. This is how I perceive I am learning about myself and how to evaluate life experience to learn and improve from it.

Anyway enough for now, I’m a kinaesthetic learner and I’ve been sat too long at a PC blogging I need to go have another physical experience !!!  


References:

Reflective Practices - A Reader compiled by Adesola Akinleye.

Establishing Professional Practice - Module Handbook for WBS3002 Middlesex University 2010.

Kolb D 1984 Experimental Learning Experience
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinesthetic_learning 

Reflective writing task and how i became a "poof"


I have been researching the art of reflective writing with the material supplied by Adesola and further research of these methods via the internet.

I realised very early on when reading the research material that I think most of us do this as a matter of course in our daily lives but we don’t always formalise this by writing it in a journal or blog or thinking of it in terms such as “reflective learning”. We do it somewhere in our subconscious. By doing this course we are encouraged to think about it as a more “conscious” activity and we become more aware and more observant.

We all do reflect on our experiences, we look back at what has happened
(good and bad) but don’t realise how this is helping us to learn and develop or to change our attitudes towards certain things.

How many of us have sat on a train or bus reflecting on our day: what went well and what went not so well? How some experiences we have had has changed our way of thinking or we’ve decided if we were faced with that experience again we may deal with it differently? I think most of us! I know I have many times!

So I think what this is saying to us is; practical experience is important and reflection on that experience helps us to learn from our experiences.

By promoting “reflection” through this course it does make me think more about the processes related to my own life experiences and provide new areas to debate and discuss with others via the blog. I also think reflective writing does help us to put things into perspective and gives us chance to develop through feedback from others. It helps us explore our feelings and work through difficult or painful experiences and identify aspects of an experience we can use in other situations.

I am also finding I have rediscovered my love of writing. Always an enthusiastic student at English with the knack of being able to tell a “gud ‘en”, as we say in my part of the world, I am enjoying the creative and flexible writing about my experiences and hopefully I am learning along the way ! Keeping a reflective journal to reveal my inner thoughts and opinions means I can be very open and honest and it is therapeutic as I discover things about myself I haven’t thought about before.

According to the text books, “Reflective writing  is developing my data recording skills, improving my observational practice, and developing my analytical skills to enhance my ability to argue convincingly. Having a clearer idea of who you are as a person and as a professional highlights your strengths and areas of challenge. You gain a better idea of the direction you are headed in, how and when to change course, and what you need to reach your destinations.
Analysing life experiences and choices provides the foundation for future learning. Developing the ability to think critically enhances academic writing and presentations. As an independent learner, the reflective person has the advantage of being able to cultivate these skills by taking responsibility for their disappointments and seeking ways to enhance their professional competence”.

I am writing in first person (i.e., using “I” and “myself” statements) and it’s fun to search  for references that back up my claims, it really has brought home to me that my interpretation of life was not brought about in a vacuum. I am thinking outside the box!!

I realise that I think I have already been “reflectively writing” my blog entries without really thinking about it in such a formal way. I like to give my blog entries an interesting title to try and grab the reader’s attention, I try to make them “generalizable” to human thoughts and feelings, give my opinion and viewpoint and conclude with an outward looking question to try and initiate a response/a reaction from the reader. Sounds really technical and literary advanced doesn’t it ? I’ve not analysed it before in formal terms!? I’ve just done it without thinking !!!

I definitely think we can all learn from comparing and sharing similar experiences by discussing how an experience affects us and how an experience changes the way we think about something and how we use those experiences to learn and develop and this should hopefully promote our professional development.

So using the frameworks from Reid and Moon – I have tried a reflective writing blog re my audition experience to become a “poof”. Moon wrote about learning journals and I have used an extract from my journal to reflect below to note down and record my active thoughts. Perhaps someone can give me feedback on whether using a formulated structure has improved the writing from my previous blogs or is there no real difference? Feel free to comment !

How I became a”Poof” !

My first west end role and I’m one of Snow White’s Seven “poofs” ! Yes you read it right – I’m playing the role of “Fag Hag, a poof”.

Not exactly PC is it but then this is no ordinary panto? As the flyer and the website say; “please note this is an adults only pantomine and definitely not suitable for children, the faint hearted and persons of a prudish nature”.
Not one to invite my Grandad to then and not exactly what my grandma would have approved of !?

So how did it all happen?
 I was contacted by the agency Spotlight to see if I was interested in applying for a role in “Snow White and the Seven Poofs” which would be playing at the Leicester Square Theatre from 1^st December 2010 – 9^th January 2011. Of course as I am currently unemployed I apply for anything and everything and sent my profile picture and CV off to the director and waited to hear.
I thought this would be a good opportunity to work in a west end theatre with professional artistes, it would be good for my CV and would get me seen by directors, casting agents and agencies  and it would be good fun over the Christmas period to be actually performing again.  After all Panto at Christmas is tradition, like turkey and mince pies !?

This was fringe work, in a small theatre for very little pay but a good way of networking and getting my face known – the theatre is in the west end and you never know what that might lead to whilst I am waiting for my cruise contract or something else to happen.  I would be working alongside some of the capitals most famous drag idols in adult panto. The company had a very successful run last year with “Sinderfella”.

I have done local panto for many years as a featured dancer and played small roles but this would be something completely different. I would also be back in London and in the right place for any other auditions coming up. I remember a tutor at Bird telling my group never to turn down or underestimate the value of fringe work.

Simon the producer rang me several times to offer me an audition and seemed really keen as he was searching for a blonde dancer – no worries there then, I satisfy both those criteria. The advert mentioned the word “androgynous”( which I admit I had to look up in the dictionary) this is where a person is neither clearly masculine or feminine in appearance,  so that would be quite a challenge, playing a man. I don’t consider I have the figure or appearance of a man, I am quite womanly curvy but he had seen my profile pictures on Spotlight and would know that I figured.

 I travelled down to London to meet him and attend the audition. I felt really good about the whole thing. It was going to be a challenge but I felt he seemed really interested in me and that gives you a boost of confidence almost immediately.
I felt a little apprehensive waiting for the train, I’d been away from London for 3 months now but stepping off the train at Kings Cross I felt a burst of energy. Just being back in the capital again gave me a buzz and I felt alive and sort of “home” in a strange way.

My parents home in Yorkshire is my birth place and will always be special, real “home”, the place I go to rest and relax, see my family and friends and be the “real” me but London for me is the place where everything is happening in the world of dance and theatre and even just a few weeks away makes you ready to return to the buzz of the west end. It’s the smell of the greasepaint I expect?

 I met the producer in a very confident, happy mood and we chatted over coffee for a while before the auditions began.  He told me a lot about himself and the production and he seemed really nice and easy to get on with and he made me feel really relaxed and I was suddenly very enthusiastic about the job.

The other auditionees arrived and we prepared to start the auditions. We met the choreographer and we learnt a dance routine to “Bad Romance” by Lady GAGA.The  other girl auditioning said I would be ok because I looked like Lady Gaga. I don’t know if that was meant as a compliment or not but it’s not the first time I’ve been told that actually. I don’t think I do but I’m not too sure but I can certainly strut like her so I gave it my best “Gaga”. My training has taught me to focus on the intricate details of the choreography and always listen carefully what the choreographer asks of you.

As there were two boys and two girls (the others didn’t show) we had to play around with partnerships as the director wanted to see what the chemistry was like between the couples. The routine was short and sweet but it contained a double/triple pirouette and a sideward kick so the choreographer could see basic technique. The director was very keen on characterisation and performance and gave us ideas on how to develop and create a character in the short space of time. He particularly liked my northern accent and asked me to play it really rough – I presume a “poof” in this production with a very broad Yorkshire accent would be quite funny and quite different to everyone else!! 

 I was then paired with a guy named Ashley and we did a dance to Peter Kay’s, “Once Upon  A Christmas Song”, a rather camp, cheesy version was the requirement  so I put on my cheesiest grin and  tried my best to be “camp”. We seemed to get the right chemistry going between us and the comedy worked well. The idea was that we were to create a comedic duo on the spot and were able to work with each other well within a short space of time as the rehearsal period for the show is only 10 sessions!  This one we only got to perform once so I had to perform my best straight off as I wouldn’t be given another chance. This was something I was taught at college – always perform the first time like it’s your last, it may be the only chance you get !

It all seemed to go well and I remember I felt very confident and relaxed. Ashley was a real nice guy and we clicked almost immediately as partners and we were able to make our audience laugh. It was all very spontaneous and exciting. I still was a little concerned about the “androgynous” bit as I don’t really have a boyish or manly figure but I tried to focus on the partnership we were creating and the direction Simon was giving and hoping I wasn’t too feminine and we were getting laughs so I suppose that part was working.

I must say when I finish auditions I can’t always remember what happened in any great detail. I focus that hard during the audition and the adrenalin’s pumping so much that I’m always mentally and physically drained afterwards. At college we were taught to evaluate auditions and reflect on what went well and what went not so well but my head’s always a shed when I’ve finished. Of course each one is different and you always learn something from each one about yourself but you can never rely on anything being the same at any one, basically the secret I’ve found is to be prepared for anything and just try to concentrate on myself and be myself, focus on the details of the choreography and the directions given. I find I suddenly start the “post mortem” many hours afterwards when I’ve “come down” from the high and depending on the result this decides whether I feel positive or negative about myself.

Auditions are a flawed system, often subjective rather than objective. There isn't another employment process in the world that interviews hundreds of people at once, and half-way through, informs most (in the presence of each other) that they haven't been chosen and are excused or as in the business we say, “cut”. It's a tough experience and very brutal but until a better system comes along, I suppose we must make the best use of the one we've got and accept it, flaws and all.
Auditions give us valuable information about ourselves. We learn to accept that not being chosen is a permanent part of the process and we're not always going to be on the favourable end of it. They show us our strengths and our weaknesses and areas where we need to improve.
Hopefully, we view all as opportunities and experiences to learn from or we become really cynical and depressed. I have witnessed the only girl in the audition who can’t learn the routine get a call back and all the others who could, get cut. Blows my mind sometimes and it’s better on those days to try and not analyse it too closely as it goes against all the things you were taught in your training. Sometimes the best advice is to remember that you just don’t know what they’re looking for and leave it at that, it may just be the colour of your eyes !!!
I try to take positives from each audition I do but at the end of the day unless you’ve been offered the job you can’t help feeling some sense of failure. I think that is only natural as a human being when you face rejection of any kind but as my agent friend Stuart says, “you just got to keep trying and believing in yourself and persevering!” but it can take some effort to keep going after a spell of rejections and it’s rare you get personal feedback to give you an insight as to where you could improve for next time.  You very often have to rely on your own assessment and judgement of how it went  or you may get some good positive comments from others auditioning that give you a boost!

I always presume that I’m being evaluated from the moment I walk in the door – my Bird training coming out again ! As you cross the floor, drop your bag against the wall, and start warming up, you're being observed. Timidity, anxiety, confidence, sweetness, arrogance, whatever, is communicated and even before dancing a step, an observant choreographer or director may already have a take on you.

I was always taught at college that I should go to an audition dressed to impress and to perform so I always go with full make-up and hair done and I choose my clothes very carefully. I think it says something about you as a person as well as a performer, that you have made the effort and feel it is important, as at the end of the day it is a job interview. It shows you care about getting the job and that you take the process seriously. Also from a personal point of view, I always feel good if I look good and I think if you feel good you perform better!! A first impression can be a lasting impression and the first impression a prospective employer gets of you is how you look when you walk through the door.

This audition was slightly different to the big open auditions I have done for cruise ships and west end shows where literally hundreds of hopefuls turn up. This audition was an invited few through our profiles on Spotlight so it was much more intimate but I still approached it the same way.  I made sure I was early and knew where I had to go. I researched the company and the director beforehand and made sure I knew something of their previous work and I presented myself how I’d been trained to.

Of course I wanted to be offered the job.

 I’ve felt strange, like something was missing the last few weeks and I think this is  a mixture of missing  the “rush” of performing and feeling I’m on the “going nowhere” express.  It has been 5 weeks since the Royal Caribbean audition when I was on such a high at my success but the anxiety of the waiting game for that cruise contract actually arriving is so debilitating in a strange way – it’s like you’ve been told you were successful after 3 hours of tough auditions against hundreds of other hopefuls  and  you’re on a real high but then the reality is you’ve got to wait for a vacancy to come up and for a casting  and that frustration  and  waiting around for the email is torture – it’s like you’re in a limbo land and you feel great one minute and empty the next and that sucks the energy from you. 

I think it’s also about adjusting to not having your day structured like when you’re at school and college –  it’s only 3 months since I graduated and I am used to college life - you know it’s ballet at 8.30am, jazz at 10.30, Drama at 12.30 and so on and so forth, every day,  5 days a week. Having a whole day in front of you with no structure to it is really strange. So just being in the game again felt good. It would be great to have some structure back to my day – learning lines/lyrics, warm up, rehearsal, performance !!!! Bring it on !!

So I travelled back to central London hoping I was going to get the job. I felt I’d done well and the most important thing was I’d really enjoyed it and I felt good about myself. It would be nice to have this job for Christmas to give me some focus and structure !!! 

The only niggle in the back of my head was the “androgynous” requirement as although I felt myself I had done the better audition, the other female there was in my opinion far more “androgynous”  in appearance  and body shape than I was and from experience before, I know casting can very often come down to a specific “look”.  I wondered on the way back to town if I should have made myself look  more “manly” or “boyish” in appearance, ie: laid off the make-up, maybe done my hair slightly different, but  whatever , I couldn’t have done anything about my shape. Perhaps that would be the deciding factor?   I was still confident I had impressed Simon from his body language so it was just wait and see again.

As an actress I was told at college my strengths are my comic timing, a strong voice and the ability to do a variety of different accents and act in roles that are older than my actual age.  I always seem to be cast as the villainess (Killer Queen – We Will Rock You) , the wicked queen (Evilene – The Wiz) , the clown or goof ball (Lambchops - Fame) which for a quiet introvert is a paradox really but I have never been looked upon as the sweet, innocent pretty princess type and I think I have to accept I never will be. My strength will be playing the evil stepmother or the villain. I think this will be my casting bracket but that’s ok, I think playing the baddy is much more fun. This particular role “Fag Hag” – one of the seven poofs – would be a comic challenge – they’re advertised as the most outrageous dwarfs ever seen in pantomime history!!!  I can only imagine what that means, but I think I can do “outrageous” quite well !!!

About 7pm that same evening Simon contacted me with the offer of the contract. I was of course really happy, it’s very exciting but also a little scary, but I also felt a kind of relief, as if at last something was happening. It also gives your confidence and self esteem a boost to know you’ve got the job.

I can’t wait to start working on it. My first west end role, even if it’s only fringe work how cool does that sound? It’s going to be such fun and how exciting to be in the west end ! At last something professional for my CV!!!  

What was so good to hear was the feedback from Simon who said he was really impressed with my audition and that he’d re thought the character of Fag Hag to develop around the way I’d played it at the audition – she’s now described as a “tango‘d”, “trashy, poor man’s Cheryl Cole with dodgy hair extensions, excruciatingly high heels and a broad Yorkshire accent who can down a pint or two. OMG, type cast !!!

This tells me I did a lot of right things in the audition and to remember that for next time. A casting director can change his mind, just by observing how you do something which may be totally different to how he first imagined it. He said he’d started imagining me in the role whilst first talking to me before the audition as he loves different accents and characters to make the piece more interesting. He’d originally thought of her as an Essex girl. The choreographer had enjoyed my Lady Gaga too which apparently will feature in the panto.

I was really pleased with myself.  I’d even thought of not applying for the role originally when I read the requirements in the advert because when I looked up the word “androgynous” I thought my body shape would let me down and I wouldn’t be considered suitable.

I printed my script and found out that I actually have quite a lot to do – I’m a soloist dancer as well as the poof called ‘Fag Hag’!  I can already tell that it’s going to be great fun and it’ll be a blast working with some of London’s top drag queens  - Snow White looks amazing ( I really can’t believe that’s a guy!!)  I know it’s going to be very camp – the lyrics to YMCA are hilarious! I was also really pleased Ashley was also cast as the poof , “Muscle Mary” and we will be working together a lot, we got on so well at the audition. There is one other female in the cast who is playing the role of “Butch Dyke”, the rest are guys or are they ?!

http://www.leicestersquaretheatre.com/lqt/show/S1264169028/Snow+White+%26+the+Seven+Poofs

Due to the content (it’s very ADULT!) none of my family will be able to come down to watch me as they all have children and it is rather unsuitable. My mum will come watch and decide whether it’s suitable for my dad !  I just have to hope lots of agents and casting directors will come along and watch and it may lead to something else, there’s lots of promo work to do as well during the run, but it’s a start and I’m working !!!!! Sheridan Smith, current star of Legally Blonde on the West End, is from my neck of the woods and it’s sort of a similar start to hers, she was spotted in fringe work !!
I mean even though this is Snow White and the Seven Poofs - it is art  - "Oh yes it is !!!"

References:
Reflective practices - A Reader compiled by Adesola Akinleye ( 2010)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles

MOON J (1999) Reflection in Learning and Professional Development: theory and practice London; Kogan Page 0-7494-2864-3

   

 

It's a girl's perogative to change her mind?

I fancied a change of colour and design for my blog so I've done a little bit of playing around tonight and managed, after about 2 hours, to come up with something I liked! I hope you like the change - I'll probably change it again very soon as I'm still experimenting with designs! When I was younger I used to constantly update and change my Myspace page as I enjoy creating and designing......

I'm working on my reflective writing based on the style of Reid and Moon so hopefully I'll be able to post that on here for you to read! I'm basing it on my audition for my recent pantomime audition, and success, Snow White and the Seven Poofs!! So watch this space.....

I'm also writing in my reflective journal daily about all sorts of different things and experiences. It's strictly private and personal to me - I'm being very honest about my feelings and thoughts throughout it and some are best not to be repeated! Ha! As Mark said at the last drop in session 'if you would be embarrassed to show other people your journal, you are not being honest enough' - mine definitely would be embarrassing if people were to view it as I've discussed some really personal things to me!
I'm actually really enjoying writing a journal, I don't know why I haven't tried writing one before. I did keep a private blog as I've mentioned before in previous posts but this was mainly for one specific topic which was my solo platform at college. It's a great theraputic way to discuss your thoughts and feelings, it gets things off your chest and you're able to express exactly how you feel within the moment. Not a lot of people can easily talk about emotions and feelings (such as myself) so I believe a journal like this is such a good way to document events and think about them thoroughly! Then I will be able to critically reflect at a later date......

We are not amused......................

.....interesting story today in the Metro Paper on page 3 !!

The Queen’s Facebook page was unveiled yesterday and more than 100,000 signed in for updates to the new “British Monarchy” page meaning they will receive updates on the Queen’s activities.
Buckingham Palace says it is not a personal profile page, but users can "like" the service and receive updates on their news feed. Over 40,000 people rushed to “like” the new Facebook page in the first hour.

It was intended as an understated means of plugging the Royal Family into Facebook with updates but it promptly became a forum for slanging matches between anti-royalists and supporters.

So even the Queen now has a Facebook account, although we cannot add her as a friend ……………interestingly it was the third most popular story accessed on the BBC News website today.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11704599

It actually made me think would the Queen actually ever look at the site or read any of the postings. It would certainly give her an insight into how the public are thinking about the monarchy and some of the issues that interest and engage them, although I suppose she has plenty of advisors already around her to inform her of that.

The new Facebook page has been described as "the final frontier" of the Queen's foray into digital technology. Does the fact that the Queen has a social network page on Facebook mean she embraces the web and has become a trendsetter serving a new generation of web users  and this could then be considered clever marketing of a modern and up to date monarchy who keep in touch with changing times?.

Researching a little further I found she actually already has a Twitter account with 70,148 followers launched in July 2009 to spread news about the Royal Family and she has her own You Tube channel launched in 2007 which hosts videos of key events such as the Christmas message which has 32,418 subscribers and whose films have been watched over 8.3 million times over the last 3 years.

However it saddened me and shocked me a little that even the Queen was subject to slanderous and insulting comments on her official page. It seems some people will take any opportunity to post vile comments regardless and this makes me reflect on some of the down sides of social network sites I’ve discussed previously in some of my blogs.
Moderators were forced to remove dozens of comments by anti-monarchist saboteurs who clicked the “like” button in order to join discussions on the page only to post abusive messages. A Buckingham Palace spokesman confirmed that moderators had been forced to remove “a number” of abusive postings. “There are an awful lot of comments on there and, while we’re certainly not stifling debate, our colleagues in the web office are moderating the page and removing any offensive comments with sexual content or bad language,” he said.
I think this is one of the unintended consequences of Facebook. Although it started out  to create a “facebook” for Harvard University - a book of pictures used to find cute girls and guys to date  it became very big , very fast and now serves half a billion users, many of it’s users, especially young people, not even concerned with the controversies.
Facebook has provided an opportunity for a wide variety of groups to attempt to build support for a cause. At one end of the spectrum it has been used to get Rage Against the Machine to the top of the pop charts in the UK and at the other, it is vital for serious political campaigns, from the disputed Iranian elections to action against BP over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the Facebook group is the first port of call for many to give their views. Even though it might not have been intended, fairly early on Facebook was a political platform.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10705923

It seems however good intentions are they can always be abused.

I then started to think about what some of the Queens descendants would make of our modern world and the fact that slanderous comments could be made against the Queen herself on her own official page. And by the same token what some of our most famous traitors in history would think if they could come back for a day and observe that they only have to log on and they can  say what they like about who and what they like publically even to the monarchy and government? Interesting thought ??!!

The most serious of all crimes in the Elizabethan Age was high treason, ie: plotting to overthrow the queen. In law treason is the crime that covers some of the more serious acts of betrayal of one's sovereign or nation. A person who commits treason is known in law as a traitor.
In English law, high treason was punishable by being hanged, drawn and quatered (men) or burnt at the stake (women), or beheading (royalty and nobility). Treason was the only crime which attracted those penalties. The penalty was used by later monarchs against people who could reasonably be called traitors. Many of them would now just be considered dissidents.

In Shakespeare’s play King Lear, when the King learns that his daughter has publicly dishonoured him, he says “They could not, would not do 't; 'tis worse than murder” a conventional attitude at that time (1600). In Dantes’Inferno, the ninth and lowest circle of hell is reserved for traitors; and Juds Iscariot who betrayed Jesus in the bible, suffers the worst torments of all: being constantly gnawed at by one of Lucifer's own three mouths. His treachery is considered so notorious that his name has long been synonymous with traitor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason
There have been plans afoot for many years to change the laws on treason in the UK but apparently there is an awful lot of statute law in the UK that deals with treason and all acts are still in force. Interesting thought????

TREASON ACTS

1351: Defines offence

1495: Allows defence

1695: Regulates trials

1702: Bans hindering succession

1708: English/Scottish law harmonised

1814: Ends disembowelling etc

1842: Deals with firearms, attempts to alarm monarch

1848: Deals with radical agitation

1998: Crime act ends death penalty

All acts still in force

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7288516.stm
So are these Facebook perpetraitors, traitors, dissidents or just members of a modern culture who have the benefit of free speech and social networking sites?
I think all I can perhaps safely say is the Queen’s ancestors would definitely not be amused !!!!

Wordle experiment ................

Due to being pretty much bed bound today because of illness - I have been expermenting with Wordles. Peter showed me the one he made of one of my blogs so I decided to play around making up some new designs.
I've made 2 wordle's about dance but 2 different designs and then one pasting my quotes from my Facebook profile. Purely experimental but thought they looked rather cool and creative so I decided to share what I'd done.
See what you think and maybe have a go at one yourself.... ?

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/2693077/Dance

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/2693147/Dance_2

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/2693289/Quotes

10 things we can't live without!

 

I read an article today in a magazine entitled.........10 things we can’t live without! 

Quote:“Nearly everything had to go. A few months after losing her administrative job in the summer of 2008, 23-year-old Brianna Karp got rid of her furniture, a beloved piano, and most of her books so she could move back in with her parents. When that didn't work out, she moved into an old trailer a relative had left her, settling into an informal homeless community in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Brea, Calif. By the summer of 2009, she was living without electricity, regular showers, home-cooked food, and most basic conveniences.

Karp held tight to one appurtenance, however: her laptop computer. She spent hours at a nearby Starbucks, using the wireless network to surf for jobs. A friend suggested she start a blog about her life on the edge, which she called the Girl's Guide to Homelessness. It generated attention that helped land a part-time magazine internship. Then came an offer to write a book about her ordeal, which is due out in 2011 and might get turned into a movie. With some money from a book advance, Karp has upgraded to a better trailer, on a friend's property, and she's eyeing a Victorian fixer-upper she'd like to make her permanent home. Yet she craves few of the material things she's given up, while cherishing the friends and opportunities she's discovered online. "When you're in survival mode, you slash everything," Karp says. "That makes the online community that much more important. Online, somebody will always be there for me."”

This made me think of a film called “Julie and Julia” and how this inspired me to use the idea of a personal reflective blog to document my Solo Platform Performance journey at college.“Julie and Julia” started as a blog by Julie Powell, became a book, also by Powell, and eventually a major motion picture starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. All three document Powell's efforts to cook her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking cookbook in one year's time. The blog, book and movie explore the obvious and not-so-obvious ways that the project changed the life of Julie Powell.

To read some of Julie’s blog click on the link;

http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/

I used this as an idea to keep a reflective blog in my third year at college to document the trials and tribulations of my Solo Platform Performance. My blog is a blog-by-blow account of my experiences with all the stages of the performance piece from the conception of the idea, to the first rehearsal on to the actual performance. It includes the successes and the failures along the way of my 3 month journey and is a very personal account. I thought it would motivate me and document my progress and be useful to critically reflect and evaluate at the end of the journey.

The difference between the 2 was that Julie’s was posted on the net and she quickly had lots of followers and hits, mine was just a personal diary and no one but my tutor read it at the end of my journey.

Julie says in one of  her blog entries , “What I didn’t know, when I started, was how much I would come to rely upon the feedback and encouragement and just plain daily greatness of all of you who’ve so inexplicably agreed to go through this thing with me.”

I also became addicted to writing my blog even though no one else was reading it. It became therapeutic for me to reflect on how everything was going and as I went on it became more and more of a very personal journey. It is brutally honest and critical and provides an insight into the roller coaster ride of emotions I went through. 

Here’s an extract from my reflective blog............... one of the bad days;

7: 45pm Friday 4^th June 2010

Ever had one of those days when you should never have got out of bed?

Shud’ve just pulled the duvet over the head and stayed there ?!
Well today was one of those days !!

Despite still feeling lousy got up at 6 and got to college for 8am to ensure I was on time for showcase opening rehearsal scheduled for 8.30am . Started rehearsal at 9:45 am and did exactly 4 bars of music before leaving for agent showcase rehearsal at 12 which I suppose went ok despite frog like croaking sounds from my direction. I sound like Bernadette in Priscilla.

I suddenly found out at the end of the showcase rehearsal that David Leighton’s rehearsal later is at St Johns Hall and I don’t have trainers. Not supposed to use heels there as the floor very slippy and risk of injury. Arrrrrrrggggggggh!
If I rush I may just get home to New Eltham and back in time to get trainers before platform rehearsal.

Platform rehearsal with other SP dancers and Luisa at 2:30pm  -        total disaster!!!!
Luisa seemed really annoyed with the group, said we were all totally unorganised and she seemed particularly cross with me cos I wasn’t at tutorial on Friday 21^st May but I had informed her at my first ever tutorial I had booked to meet Eddie to help me at home with the platform on the weekends of 8^th and 21^st May and she had said that was ok !!
This was not a good start!!

[ Being honest it’s a good job I did go home those two weekends cos Eddie is  the one dance person who has actually helped me put something constructive together – so far it’s been a very solo , solo platform with lots of promises of help but in reality actually nothing happening !!]

Anyway, went through the dance and I felt it didn’t go too badly. My balance in the opening ponche felt good and I really tried to focus on the breath so my turns in attitude and at the end went well but overall I know I have done the piece much better but it was the first time with other students watching it, the cd was fowling up,  and I had to put my hand down in no handed, I had to use a very bad plastic chair which I couldn’t manoeuvre on  very well and  basically had a very hostile audience, even CT did not make any impression.

Luisa said nothing – no feedback – not one word.  Not even any feedback from fellow students, not even a polite ripple of applause for having the balls to get up there. I clapped everyone cos I thought they were all so amazing!!

Silence is golden and speaks volumes doesn’t it?!! I know now what the expression “died” on stage really means.
Apparently today was a dress rehearsal – well thanks anyone and everyone for letting me know – nothing about that on call notice  -  mine still in Yorkshire with the chair!!
My music needs further editing as technical people are not able to cope on Monday with fading music? I won’t even go there I haven’t the where with all but Jack came to my rescue and offered to edit it over the weekend!!
 (Bless him for that.)
In a rush to get my trainers I had left my programme notes for Luisa in my other bag, so will have to email them through to her later when I get home!

Everyone else performed their dances and Luisa gave feedback to each one – how they had improved and worked hard and each had a little ripple of applause from the other students – how great does that make me feel guys??  Self esteem and confidence hit rock bottom again!  I am dancing at number 6 in the line up and Steph is to set my props for me and I’m to help her with hers, she’s dancing second. Obviously sandwiched me between Katie and James so everyone got 8 minutes to get over the euphoria of Katie and prepare for James who will both be very good and very popular with the crowd!!! It’ll give everyone time to get their breath back anyway and read the programme notes for the others!!! It’s the point where if it were on telly you’d go to make a cup of tea, like when the Cypriot entry comes on the Eurovision song contest!

Oh well, ever hopeful, maybe David Leighton will boost me with some confidence later.

Think my day couldn’t get any worse oh boy how wrong could I be ?!

Got the worst ballet result and report I’ve ever had in my life for my 3^rd year assessment –  dreadfully disappointed and totally disillusioned. Probably a pointless exercise dancing the platform in front of any of the ballet faculty I’m so bad apparently!!!!!!!  I could cry – my opening move is a ponche into a ronde jambe and just for a treat there’s a devloppe in there and fouettes at the end – oh joy.
Oh well, dig deep girl and  keep going Emily only another 4 hours of the worst day ever to get through!!!

Next stop David Leighton’s show piece rehearsal. Hopefully this will go well and end my day on a high .
 
Make it by skin of teeth to St Johns.
Walk into rehearsal.
Everyone else in heels – me in trainers – New Yorkers in locker at Bexley !!
[Deffo a Bridget Jones moment!!]
Worse still, David Leighton announces he is finishing rehearsal early as he has to be somewhere else  -  obviously not going to watch my platform – heart sinks to boots – it’s now officially a really, really bad day !!

 Long bus ride home alone – tired after 10 hour day, hot and sticky ( it’s been 26 degrees and sunny) , still full of this viral infection,  disillusioned and disappointed. No one has actually looked at the second half of my piece to give me any constructive criticism. I feel really lonely right now.

OMG !!!!  I’m totally incompetent at ballet and  it’s official my platform is crap!!!

Can’t get upset I’m working tomorrow so need to get an early night again – gonna have hot shower and something to eat, then bed with hot ribena and paracetemol. How fun is my life?
For what it’s worth I’ve emailed programme notes to Luisa.

Note to self:   Maybe Freed have got full time vacancies after July 17^th  – seems the nearest I’ll ever get to being a dancer is to sell dance shoes, tights and leotards to other dancers !!!!]

I read the whole of the blog again and I was astonished at the memories it brought flooding back but what a really excellent way of storing and documenting information keeping a blog like that can be, it gives you so much information to use when evaluating and reflecting on the process and the successes and failures.

So the big question, should I publish? It worked for Brianna Karp and Julie Powell !
There may be a book and a film deal pending??!! I could even play the part of myself in the movie!....

Welcome to the "Dark Side"............

................................ [well.... it is Hallowe'en!]
Following Peter's comments on my Cyber Balkanisation blog I thought,
"Hey it's Halloween I'll explore the Dark Side" and I thought the findings were worth sharing ’cos it’s all really rather scary stuff.

As a self confessed Star Wars fan I was a bit excited at the thought of going over to the "Dark Side" of the net - I thought it must be where you could socially interact with Darth Vader, my all time favourite bad guy, and that lead me to explore and be curious.

The darkweb"; "the deep web"; beneath "the surface web" – ooh those metaphors alone make it suddenly intriguing and mysterious. Other terms circulate among those in the know: "darknet", "invisible web", "dark address space", "murky address space", "dirty address space". Not all these phrases mean the same thing. While a "darknet" is an online network such as Freenet that is concealed from consumer and research data that is beyond the reach of search engines. "Dark address space" often refers to internet addresses that, for purely technical reasons, have simply stopped working. No Darth Vader to network with then? Bit disappointing but decided to learn more.

 Most of it is beyond the confines of most people's online lives. There is a vast other internet out there, used by millions but largely ignored by the media and properly understood by only a few computer scientists.

Fourteen years ago, an Irish teenager with a flair for inventions arrived at Edinburgh University to study artificial intelligence and computer science. For his thesis project, Ian Clarke created "a Distributed, Decentralised Information Storage and Retrieval System", or, as a less precise person might put it, a revolutionary new way for people to use the internet without detection. By downloading Clarke's software, which he intended to distribute for free, anyone could chat online, or read or set up a website, or share files, with almost complete anonymity.

"It seemed so obvious that that was what the net was supposed to be about – freedom to communicate," Clarke says now. "But [back then] in the late 90s that simply wasn't the case. The internet could be monitored more quickly, more comprehensively, more cheaply than more old-fashioned communications systems like the mail." His pioneering software was intended to change that.

His tutors were not bowled over. "I would say the response was a bit lukewarm. They gave me a B. They thought the project was a bit wacky … they said, 'You didn't cite enough prior work.'"

Undaunted, in 2000 Clarke publicly released his software, now more appealingly called Freenet. Nine years on, he has lost count of how many people are using it: "At least 2m copies have been downloaded from the website, primarily in Europe and the US. The website is blocked in [authoritarian] countries like China so there; people tend to get Freenet from friends." Last year Clarke produced an improved version: it hides not only the identities of Freenet users but also, in any online environment, the fact that someone is using Freenet at all.

Installing the software takes barely a couple of minutes and requires minimal computer skills. You find the Freenet website, read a few terse instructions, and answer a few questions;

“How much security do you need?" …
"NORMAL: I live in a relatively free country" or
"MAXIMUM: I intend to access information that could get me arrested, imprisoned, or worse".

This says it all doesn’t it ?! Can’t get scarier than that!

Then you enter a previously hidden online world. In utilitarian type and bald capsule descriptions, an official Freenet index lists the hundreds of "freesites" available:
 "Iran News",
 "Horny Kate",
"The Terrorist's Handbook:
 A practical guide to explosives and other things of interests to terrorists",
"How To Spot A Paedophile [sic]",
"Freenet Warez Portal: The source for pirate copies of books, games, movies, music, software, TV series and more",
"Arson Around With Auntie: A how-to guide on arson attacks for animal rights activists".
There is material written in Russian, Spanish, Dutch, Polish and Italian. There is English-language material from America and Thailand, from Argentina and Japan.
There are disconcerting blogs;
"Welcome to my first Freenet site. I'm not here because of kiddie porn … but I might post some images of naked women" and legally dubious political revelations.

There is all the teeming life of the everyday internet, but rendered a little stranger and more intense. One of the Freenet  bloggers sums up the difference: "If you're reading this now, then you're on the darkweb."

In the 'deep web', Freenet software allows users complete anonymity as they share viruses, criminal contacts and child pornography. Freenet means controversial information does not need to be stored in physical data havens they can be disguised in a very normal way.

However even the "open" internet  has increasingly become a place for concealment: people posting and blogging under pseudonyms, people walling off their online lives from prying eyes on social networking websites as they search for online privacy.

The more people do everything online, the more there's going to be bits of your life that you don't want to be part of your public online persona but I’m not so sure you’d want to go over to the dark side just to try and get annominity and if we’re trying to network as professionals there wouldn’t be much point. Certainly as an entertainer I can’t see me getting seen by the right people who can promote my career.

A spokesman for the Police Central e-crime Unit [PCeU] at the Metropolitan Police points out that many internet secrets hide in plain sight: "A lot of internet criminal activity is on online forums that are not hidden, you just have to know where to find them. Like paedophile websites: people who use them might go to an innocent-looking website with a picture of flowers, click on the 18th flower, arrive on another innocent-looking website, click something there, and so on."

Interestingly, the paedophile ring convicted this autumn and currently awaiting sentence for offences involving Little Ted's nursery in Plymouth met on Facebook. Such secret criminal networks are not purely a product of the digital age: codes and slang and pathways known only to initiates were granting access to illicit worlds long before the internet.

But a darknet is not always somewhere for the squeamish. On Freenet, there is a currently a "freesite" which makes allegations against supposed paedophiles, complete with names, photographs, extensive details of their lives online, and partial home addresses. A place you definitely don’t want to be seen and how bad if some of the allegations are not true. That suggests there is real scope for abuse by someone who may want to damage a person’s reputation. Real scary stuff!!

I don’t think I want to go over to the dark side after all and for the time being, when I'm wandering around online, I think I may stick to Google ........... even on Hallowe’en.  

Anyway.................. Darth Vader has a Twitter account I can talk to him there!!!