Half way there

So it was as though it was only yesterday when I was trawling the web for a course that suited me and now, I am half way to completing! What a ride so far, one of the most exciting of my life. Very much now looking forward to the next 18 months towards my graduation and what I can accomplish beyond it.

Oh, and a very Happy Christmas to all who find this!

p.s. The tortoise was the best representation I could find of ‘half way’…

What’s occurring???

It has been a fair while since I have posted anything here, but I am feeling the need to get something down and note just where I am in amongst all this.

Today I have started ‘honing the product’ which means for me I was totalling word counts, looking at remaining assignments and briefly planning them in my trusty notebook. I think that there is always a need to have an awareness where you are as if you are ever flying blind, I find that this detracts from self motivation as you cannot see the end of the tunnel.

One month to go and I will (results pending) have half of this beautiful beast complete…

Bringing it home

Fun and games are rife at the moment as we have just had the call ‘advising’ us that Ofsted are in this week to do a full inspection over Wed & Thur. A document circulating internally to calm everyone down opens with this:

“Outstanding teachers continuously reflect on their teaching, they analyse particular aspects of their work and find ways to develop. The main purpose of lesson observation is to provide a focusing tool for reflection and improvement.”

This struck a chord with me and really highlited the value of what were all learning here. I know we are not all working in education, but does that really make a difference?

Education is linear?

A title and image shamelessly stolen from a great thought provoking video on YouTube that really gets you thinking. It covers many points that go perhaps a bit out there in the grand scheme of things, bit the first 1:13 of the video really hits the nail in my opinion. What do you think?

‘The Purpose of Reflective Practice’

Now being used by the Universal College of Learning in New Zealand for an undergraduate course on Nursing, this is one of my assignments from the Reflection in the Work Setting module.

Thought I would share as I have not posted this here as yet.

One down, two to go…

So thats it, my first year of University study complete. It has been a real journey for me and i hope that my marks from the second semester of this year are okay. Now going to give myself a break for a week or two on the academic front, but we will see.

Phew!!!

Basic principals of my study

Here is a bit of an off-beat post to outline the components that I am so thankful for and could not imagine doing my studying / researching / learning without. First up its the underpinning element:

This is the framework on which I do 90% of my work (the other 10% is my learning journal which is a blue lined book, nothing special.) I have been involved in the IT industry for a while and without (hopefully) sounding like a bit of a bandwagon tag-along, Mac OS X has really facilitated the work I have produced so far with its simplistic file management, redundancy and time machine.

I suppose the enclosure for the previous (and all to follow) would be my fantastic laptop the MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo 15″ The best laptop I have ever had. It keeps on surprising me with most things, could not recommend a brand/model as much as this!

This little gem would have to be the secondary framework. Doing a research / distance learning degree would be rather difficult without web access and Firefox allows me to access all I need to on the web with the ability to support plugins such as Zotero.

The common room / lecture theatre / tutorial space and everything else, FirstClass is the University. It brings the Cohort together to engage in a communal learning environment and also allows students to connect with other cohorts, past and present.

Another Apple product now, still not a fan-boy, iWork 09. I have only been using it really in Semester 2, really to try it out. I have had all versions previous to 09 (through site license) but never really ran with it. 09 has really been a saviour for me, alleviating the need for buggy, slow, putrid Office:mac 2008 that I am only using for my reference page for each module as it has interoperability with Zotero, a feature iWork has yet to support.

Oh, now my favourite, Spotify is a service like iTunes that provides all music in its database (around 2-3 million) for free, streaming and instant. See my previous post to see the love!

I suppose this would be another component of the mix. Zotero is a FANTASTIC premise, but not fully developed in my opinion, head over to their website to read all about it and see how it can help you.

Oh come on, not everything is good with hiher education, this is how the descrepancies are dealt with!

What could you not do without???

Research Question

“How can I drive a sense of urgency and engagement in my students at both KS4 and 5?”

This is the question i will be using in the majority of my studies from this point forward until the end of the semester. I will apply an action inquiry to this question and perform reflective analysis. Im quite excited at this point, as this is so true to life and i have already started making progress with the area of engagement but hoping that studies will provide me assistance in formulating a plan. Will go nicely in the CPD evidence folder too!

Moving onto Semester 2

Maybe not the best graphic for the title, but what else could i use to objectify my new found heightened expectations of myself. I came onto this course not having studied at higher educational level before and I always knew i could do it. My feedback from Semester 1 has only confirmed that.

I really cant now wait for Semester two as i now know what to expect and i feel preety in the swing of things with some incredibly usefull feedback to use from Semester 1. Not to mention the continued invaluable community C9 that are all on this journey with me.

Final reflections on Level 1 – Semester 1

So I’m at the finishing line again for the second module of this course and 1/6 of the overall thing. Very pleased to have made it this far, but what have I taken away from it all?

Firstly, upon reflection I can see the value of the concept behind the ‘Original Ideas’ thinking. This is when you have a task presenting a learning outcome and deliverable. Traditional, you would set about forging together a load of text based upon reading materials to answer the question. I have been encouraged to challenge this idea and present work through video, audio, diagrams, charts, visual representations, imaginary letters and the list goes on. It’s all about the individuality of presenting an idea through whatever medium you like.

The biggest thing for me was to get the citations in order. To say something is so is not good enough and most of the time this must be backed up with material that has been published and cite the original author and the year the work was published. This was all very new to me, so it was a challenge to get into this mindset. This is one of the most pronounced points I will be working to improve next semester.

And finally, being critical. I have always been told that the whole part of doing a degree is about being critical in your thinking and analysis. This is something that I feel that I have fully identified with (I hope) and I feel that this has made me a more aware and engaged individual.

Community involvement at a new level

Now, if your also following the curricular of the BALTR course, you will know all about community participation in the aim of an output, but i have now come across something that brings this now to a new level.

What is being seen with the “YouTube Symphony Orchestra” is communal involvement on revolutionary global scale. Something that hasn’t been done before. I wont blab on, just look at the video, isn’t it fantastic? I might even rake out the violin again and see if i have still got it!

Done, done and DONE!!!

Hurrah! I had the final task of compressing my work and finally uploading my final submission last night after a very long and very good Post 16 induction evening. The reaction from prospective and current students was amazing, i have never been so impressed in my life!

But anyway, 1/12th of the degree is now out of the way, and 1/6th will be on the 16th with IOCT on the way. Lets see how we do with that one!

In case I ever forget

Nothing brilliant this, just a brochure from my (eventual) teacher training provider. I somehow made it onto the main page of their brochure. I think i might print this and put it on my BALTR file, just in case i ever forget where im going with all this!

(This was taken a while ago)

Plone

The fantastic FirstClass does a brilliant job of bringing students of the course together, but a big hands together for Plone, which i think brings everything together so nicley. Tomorrow is World Plone Day which is an event to celebrate the product, its uses and how it has impacted so many scenarios for the better. Take a look here to see what its all about.

Creative type?

I first watched this lecture back in 2006 and it really has to be one of the most inspirational i have ever seen. It captures many of my views on education and i think of the BALTR course ethic. Sir Ken Robinson is a very funny man and this lecture is no exception.

I will let the lecture speak for itself, but i really do implore you to watch this, it might just change the way you think about education forever…

The official page of the lecture is here. I would also encourage you to look at some of the other talks on this website as some of them are really quite moving.