Forums

Been working on setting up a forum for the Community of Practice to be launched next week. Guided by DK from Mediasnackers, I realised that I did have the necessary knowledge etc to set something up, it's the compelling stuff I need to include - the stuff that will make people want to engage.

Very interested in working from a digital dialogue or digital conversation perspective. It's about just that - communication, but we'll need to persuade some people of the value of that through social media, I guess.

So, what to use? Playing with Blogger and Wordpress and each has different pros and cons. Obviously, these are blogs not websites so there are limitations. Have a look at http://gyroscopese.wordpress.com/category/welcome/  and http://gyroscope-se.blogspot.com/ . I think that they're both very different.

It's been interesting looking at the construction of these pages from a this perspective. How to best promote conversation and interaction, but also what widgets will enable easy access and some quick wins? Both are work in progress but the next week or two will be interesting....

Slow down...

This made me smile this morning ... Have had some thinking time stimulated by the blog that it's from, particularly

http://demotivatorsblog.com/slow-down/ .  Yes I've got a pile of marking to do, but I also need to think about Assignment 2.

Also, by  using this blog as my reflective journal, is this exactly what I'm doing? Making my stupidity more accessible to others??? I'm excited that I've got followers, comments and am starting to build a network but what is that about? It's an interesting challenge to try to write stuff that you think will be interesting/stimulating for others, but is that what I should be doing I wonder?  No doubt that networking is giving me links to interesting stuff and I've got back in touch with people that will be useful and who stimulate my thoughts..

Just occurred to me that the community of practice idea that I'm working on might be something - however, I do need to get my skates on. Seems that everything is done on the run at the moment. Need to draw breath and think  things through properly.

Will be diarying some Ed D time otherwise I can see what will happen.. I'll be in the south of France, sitting on the beach with my laptop! Or maybe that's what you're supposed to do when doing an Ed D?

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...