Welcome!

Welcome to my blog which is endeavouring to map my journey through a Professional Doctorate in Education. The learning curve is steep and all climbing aids are welcome!

Saturday 30 April 2011

Where to next?

So, it's on to research methods... Having deliberately had a couple of weeks away from thinking about the digital world, my mind has been pulled in numerous directions this morning in relation finding a focus for the next assignment.

With a primary focus on the research method(s) chosen rather than what I might chose to research, I still want to do something that will contribute, that feels meaningful. However, where to go?

Had an interesting time reading critical articles with reference to the digital natives debate and in particular,  abstracts relating to 2 research papers from Holland identifying Traditionalists, Gamers, Networkers, and Producers rather than digital natives and that not all of today’s youth are active in interactive media production as described in the Net Generation literature. Guess I could have told them that! Any UK youth worker working with young people in deprived communities or with multiple issues in their lives would probably observe the same thing....

Mark Bullen writing on Net Gen Skeptic starts his comments with the title "Another Dutch research project fails to find the Net Generation". Interesting in terms of language. I think that we do have an internet generation: young people who have grown up with the internet, never knowing what it was like before, and inevitably that has to have an impact. Google handles 245 million searches per day globally. Granted, not all of these are conducted by young people, however, what did we used to do before we could just press a button? The Net Generation has to apply somewhere here, a generation that has maybe never posted a letter or used a reference book to research, but not as an exclusive concept that is age-based.

Still of interest to me is the issue of educators  choosing to use or not use digital tools for their work. I came across a 43 year old educator recently (within a football coaching context) who steadfastly refuses to have a computer at home or an email address, and who panics when asked to do a task online or to download information. And yet, when motivated by a subject or interest, used Youtube  clips on an interactive whiteboard to promote a great debate. What is that about? This refusal to move in one digital arena, when I suspect that he probably watches football at home on the latest technology!

So, the digital natives, digital immigrants concept is of interest in relation to youth work practitioner  and as a motivator to try to find answers to some of these questions. Maybe that's one piste to follow? Compare and contrast as they say...

Tuesday 5 April 2011

CEOP Ambassador training

Just delivered this training again and the safety focus always highlights the naivety of practitioners, especially in relation to their own children. Always get people coming up to me afterwards saying that they're going to check more carefully on their teenagers...

Guess that's good for me - ticking off the outcomes, but it's also scary that people don't realise the huge potential for danger and damage.

On the flip side, the message is also about the positive and fantastic resource that the internet gives us, already changed so much since my last presentation a year ago, for example, the prevalence  of smartphones. I wonder where it can all go to and will it start to slow, or come to a complete stop at some point?

On a lighter note, watched the remastered Star Trek last night. Wow - those writers predicted it all: flip phones, blue tooth hands-free, ear pieces, GPRS. Spock's tri-corder was a bit of  a let down though - looked like a squeezy bottle mounted on a handlebar grip. Probably was!

Monday 4 April 2011

Skills for Youth Work in a Digital Age workshop

Very interesting day with colleagues in Southampton, particularly being able to share stuff relating to HE, youth work and digital media.

Identified that we need to get a presence within the Y&C academic community, and Youth & Policy is the place to start. Will be interesting to adapt what I've already written to create a journal article: perhaps I will start to feel like a academic?

Have also got some focus for Assignment 2: that of the idea of an M level module around digital skills, possibly aimed at a more interdisciplinary context? Could survey across the field to get a sense of content/what's needed, and then follow up with key interviews perhaps? Might be interesting to analyse using something like SurveyMonkey to see how many people engage and how it works? Possibly follow up some with interviews? More to think about!

Sunday 3 April 2011

Sounds familiar....

Having posted earlier, my horoscope for today is...

"Your ongoing struggle now is about balancing work and play, yet the New Moon in your 5th House of Fun and Games currently emphasizes the lighter side of life. It's nearly impossible to be too serious, even if you have many obligations to fulfill. Don't sweat it if you leave a task unfinished or miss a deadline today. However, you still must pay attention to your previous commitments or life will quickly get complicated."

Sounds familiar...

Who am I?

Trying to work out what being a doctoral student means to my professional identity....

On one hand, I'm aware of playing it down, keeping it hidden. I feel justified in saying to students that I am studying too, that I can empathise with assignment stress, deadlines etc., but I'm not disclosing exactly what I'm doing...

On the other hand, I'm dreaming stuff...waking in the middle of the night with thoughts and ideas racing around. It's obviously more prominently in my mind than I think.

I've been invited to a conference tomorrow on digital media and youth work. Really exciting and I'm hoping to get some Assignment 2 focus. However, I still feel that I'm a bit of a sham, that I perhaps shouldn't be there, that I don't really know anything...

The photo shows the next performance to script: different roles are illustrated. I think that the circus analogy is important because it implies flexibility, accountability, comedy and risk and this might be the link to identity?  Important question was about 'who the ringmaster is', who's in control? The answer is of course, me, but it doesn't always feel like it......


Saturday 2 April 2011

I've got a comment!!

Interesting question - that of whether blogging and putting your thoughts out there actually changes what you are trying to say?? Getting feedback from someone on what you've written is phenomenal but scary at the same time. Got to learn to manage it somehow 'cos it's nothing like Facebook!

Pirsing in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance says that "When analytic thought, the knife is applied to experience, something is always killed in the process. That is fairly well understood, at least in the arts. Mark Twain's experience comes to mind, in which, he had mastered the analytic knowledge needed to pilot the Mississippi River, the discovered the river had lost its beauty. Something is always killed. But what is less noticed in the arts - something is always created too. An instead of just dwelling on what is killed it's important also to see what's created and to see what is process as a kind of death-birth continuity and is neither good nor bad, but just is."

I don't think it matters whether people are looking in or not... writing it down will cause you apply the knife in some way. Otherwise, why are you doing it?

Penny dropping....

 I think that I'm beginning to understand what this is all about and it's not like any 'course' of study that I've ever followed before. Always a believer in trail and error or experiential learning, this is it action.

Just when I think I'm on the right track, new questions arise. Huge learning about how to go about the process - I'm just going to throw out any previous practices or habits in order to free myself up to do it differently.

Really enjoed the last 2 days with colleagues and it's unfortunate that I haven't been able to make all sessions because I benefitted from the discussion and the laughter.

Really looking forward to getting stuck into the next bit as its more practical and judging by the assignments I've seen, should be much easier.