Getting Ready

Hi
Welcome new students and old! I am just sorting myself out, making files and organising ready for the year head. I am looking forward to a great year of study. This summer I read a lot about Pragmatism. I found that philosophy really interesting particularly with my embodied (dance) background. The show I choreographed before the summer is on tour and I am just finishing shipping some stuff to USA so I will have a lot more space in the house!! Look forward to all our conversations
Adesola

Summer

Hi
I lost my password and it has taken me a long time to work out how to get back in again!!!!!! Now I do have an equation for remembering it as suggested, that really works.

Opportunity for conversation

This Monday (April 26th) there is an opportunity for BAPP students to meet some artists working in Education. We are meeting at Cat Hill. If any of you want to come and ask questions or comment about arts-in-education, etc... you are well to come along for 45 mins starting at 3pm. This will be room G.097 which is in the Peter Green building just on the downward ramp from the coffee shop. 

All so I will be having rehearsals for a show I am choreographing through May. If people are interested in this kind of process, I am thinking of having and open rehearsal... would anyone be interested??

Conference second day

Second day: Alan, Peter and I began with our presentation. We shared about the curriculum at BAPP and got some good feedback. A lot of people were really excited about the programme. The other paper that was presented with ours was a case study of a programme for Design students to work with companies to help create real products. It was very interesting.

After this I went to a seminar that looked at the role of ‘threshold concepts’. Ideas that completely change your point of view and mean you never go back to think the way you did before you absorbed the concept. During the talk about the paper we also talked about the ‘pedagogy of Ambiguity’ (the importance of confusion and NOT understanding to the process of constructing (understanding)). In the Arts particularly it is important for some peoples practise not to know what they will create but to set up a process by which creation will happen. For many learning is the same if you know what you are going to learn from the start how will you ever learn something new? If your way to recognising learning is to need it to be ‘clear’ ‘true’ &/or ‘right’ how do you ever understand about things you did not understand to begin with. It goes back to the words in the seminar the day before about ‘meaning, experience, and behaviour’  (see blog before this one).  I want to find out more about the literature on both these ‘threshold concepts’ and ‘pedagogy of ambiguity’. I plan to do a literature search when I get back to London.

The other paper in this session was about a programme that used digital visual diaries. Some of the students work was shown and it was really lovely. The paper talked about using Story as a means to generate focus. Students had been asked to focus on a character (not necessarily human) and an environment. The Character becomes a vehicle for exploring identity and the environment augments this by developing a sense of place and interaction.

This was followed by the last Keynote who had been doing neuroscience and cognitive science with Wayne McGregor and his dancers. This was followed by lunch and the last session of the conference.

I went to a session with a paper about how people in different practises invariably think their practise is the most enlightened, or wonderful or has unique powers to change the world and that this goes hand in hand with thinking other practises are slightly inferior. This paper was saying that in fact there are more commonalities between practises than we think and it is the small differences with a field of practise that can be bigger.  This was likened to post colonial theory that talks about the ‘other’ and how the ‘other’ shaped by ‘us’. The second paper talked about the changing status of the Arts in University settings.  Both papers were talking about looking beyond your practise to understand the context you work in. During the second paper the presenter said

“You may think you are on the verge of something revolutionary, but it is only within your own group”.

The conference ended.

What do you think of all of this? 

Conference continues (first day)

Carrying on about the conference. The Keynote on ethics in the fashion industry was interesting particularly because it illustrated an aspect of the underlining discussion across the conference about information and knowledge, (and their shifting relationship in education). In this case the charity that worked for ethical methods in the fashion industry realised it had information that could be given to teachers that would inform the practise and could change the way people approached teaching some areas of the curriculum. You could argue that when they just had the information themselves it was just information but the act of sharing it and using it for something made it be come knowledge. At BAPP we are sort of saying this that knowledge is how you validate, use, authentise and apply information. Particularly, with my own research I am starting to from an argument that knowledge has something to do with action. This Keynote also spoke about Empathy, and showed a web-site / blog called Social Alterations by a student in Canada.

I then went to another session this was only one paper and it was about the importance of look for problems rather than solving them. It was the presenters first time presenting a paper and he was quite nervous but he did ok. Because this session was short I went into another one to catch the second half. I caught a paper about the artists Studio (fine art). It was talking about the importance of the Studio space. These are white boxes like the spaces near the canteen at Cat Hill. I wondered if our blogs were like Studio spaces – places to explore, listen, reflect and see each others work. This speaker also talked about the importance to her of play, chance and ignorance in the artists creative process.

Finally the last session for that day I went a session where the first paper was about where there was a quote by J. Gill “Knowledge is not a thing to be processed but an activity to be engaged in” . This really reminded me of a number of quotes by J. Dewey who I am following to form the theoretical framework of the research I am doing. I realised in this part of the session how theory in design could be drawn on to explore the experience of creating work in dance. It seems obvious if you look at my work because a lot of the dances I create like site specific ones are created using the same questions about space, function and aesthetic that a designer would use. But whereas dance could be called knowledge in action, a lot of people cannot see it because dance is too hard for them to analyse through watching, (they just think it is amazing or awful) but the crafting of design seems easier for people to be able to analyse where the person making the artwork is making decisions of aesthetic &/or function etc…in the artwork and therefore the written theory in design seemed to bridge just was well for dance to philosophy as it does for design. The second paper presented in this session was about the shared language that could be created between designers and sociologists and how this could inform design / art works and social understanding. This paper talked about design as being – ‘how could we do this?’ and sociology being ‘how do we do this?’. I wondered if it was more ‘how do we do this?’ for design and ‘why do we do this’ for sociology. But there were three words that joined across the two practises ‘meaning, experience and behaviour’ which was thought provoking for me. Again I find this really interesting because of my interest in experience as knowledge. The discussion about these two papers went over time and I had just enough time to quickly meet with Peter and Alan before we had to go to a conference dinner, which was very nice.

Going to talk about BAPP and hear what other people are doing

Alan, Peter and I went to a conference in Berlin to talk about the BAPP course. We were talking about how we use the blogs as part of the course. Other university faculties were also talking about how the inter-net could be used to support the learning and teaching of subjects. It was really interesting. Some people had built their own spaces in the inter-net but we are pretty much the only group of people using existing sites like blog-spot and Google-reader. We tried to encourage people at the conference to join in and follow everyone’s blogs.

Apart from presenting we got to go to a number of other presentations.

Here are some things I learnt from the ones I went to:

There were three Keynote speakers who spoke throughout the two days of the Conference. The first one had done a lot of work with conceptual art and outside installation. I love this kind of work and he showed some great pictures of work he had created or help support. He used to work with an organisation called Artangle in the late 80’s and early 90’s

Then I went to a seminar on a software programme for students, which is being created in New Zealand. It would allow design students to register in a web-site and state their interests, also registered would be companies with problems or a design briefs. The programme would match students, companies and briefs that all had similar interests. A bit like a dating agency. Also at that seminar there was a paper presented asking who is creating the content for university courses, especially arts course. Should it be industry/ businesses saying what they want students to know to work for them or should it be the artists and teacher saying this is what art has to offer. I may have phrased this to read along the lines of what I think !!! but what do you think of this? This presenter asked questions like is education a way of ‘being’ or a way of ‘doing’?

Next, I went to a seminar that was about a group of students that had felt out of the system of a university and had formed a group with a tutor to talk about their feelings. These talks ended up being the source material for a lot of work they created about their identity. The question here for me was that the work was extra-curricular but will the context and relationships change if the same experience was offered as part of the curriculum. People went to the group to talk because they wanted to but not everyone went. To make it part of the curriculum would mean everyone benefited and those working would have their work recognised as credits but it would also mean there would be new pressures of covering particular work that before when it was extra were not there. What do you think? Also presented was a paper on techniques for inspiring yourself to work / start a design project. I found this really interesting and I am going to try the same things out but as choreographic tasks.

The second Keynote speaker talked about ethics in the fashion and design industry. I will stop here and write more later.

Positioning of Self

These last few weeks I have been involved with organising an audition. I have received over 150 C.V.’s and it had been really clear how important they are in the initial contact with a producer. In a sense this is to do with the first module – positioning of self but as ever I think the practical experience of working is a great teacher and wanted to share some observations. These are about applying to applications via e-mail.

1) Don’t name your CV file (the one you send attached to an e-mail ) C.V. doc, or “proffesionalCV.doc” because if everyone does that there are a few problems. Firstly, as I save them on my computer the computer thinks they are the same file and can easily replace yours with the next one that is named the same thing. Secondly, I cannot tell who it is I am looking at or looking for in files unless I open the whole file each time I want to check something. This adds hours on the job of sorting through them and does not leave you feeling very good. So name the file you send “yournamecv.doc”

2) If it is a professional appointment you want. Start the c.v. with your professional experience in the specific area the job is involved with(ie site-specific dance), then your experience in general (ie dance work). Don’t start with your training.

3) If its e-mail don’t send a picture separately the two get lost from each other as soon as they are saved unless you match the names (ie yournamepicture.doc, yournameCV.doc)

4) Lastly, a short introductory e-mail with the CV is useful and can set up great expectations for opening the CV doc. But make sure you have researched who the people are involved in the job and what their interests are. Don’t send something that is obviously what you sent to everyone about being interested in their work. Check who has what roles in the production so you don’t tell the producer or the project manager you love their choreography!

What have your experiences been on this? What do you think? Are there links to ideas about research methods and the insider researcher here?

Adesola

Campus Session (March 3rd)

Hi
At 4pm, after the Campus Session on Wednesday I am going to be asking for feedback. If you are attending the session can you stay for another 20 mins to an hour whatever can work for you. feedback is really important and helps us monitor how things are going for you.

Hope to see you
Adesola

Lessons from Oprah!

Kolb's learning cycle popping up in unexpected places: I was reading my Christmas Oprah, Diet advice by Martha Beck titled 'It takes all Kinds'. Its fun to read the whole concept in terms of going on a diet!!! She has:
'"quick start" swings quickly into action, making creative discoveries and mistakes - through trial and error'
'"fact Finders" need information; they're the friends who'll research every relevant factoid about any task they're preparing to undertake'
'"Follow through" people naturally use methodical systems: they set up files for every receipt and alphabetise their refrigerator contents.'
"Implementers" focus on physical object and environments; they figure out things by building models or grabbing the appropriate tools. They respond better to bricks and mortar than castles in the air.'

The advise is that you need a group of friends that range across these types so that the strengths and weaknesses of the group can support each other on the diet. Groups - learning sets - are a great way to work. Martha says its like 'Fellowship of the Rings' a fellowship of people going on the journey together but all very different from each other. Funny to find it all in Oprah Magazine.

The "Future of work"

There have been a number of interesting programmes on T.V. and radio about the internet and networks. There was the one on BBC 2; and then on Radio 4 today about 'open source'. Companies that have there programmes open and anyone can add to them. Wikipidia being an example. The programme cited the book 'Future of Work' I looked it up and found a web-site!!...

"Future of Work is an active global community of organizations and individuals who believe in the power and importance of collective intelligence in creating the future of work. Our focus is on the changing nature of work, the workforce, the workplace, technology, and management practice.

The Work Design Collaborative, LLC (WDC), founded in 2001 by Charlie Grantham and Jim Ware, manages Future of Work. We are a research and advisory firm with a single mission: helping create the future of work.

That mission translates into four primary capabilities:

Developing Knowledge
Improving bottom-line performance
Creating new workplaces
Building communities'

I feel as if we on the edge of something (this time with its ways to connect people) but it is so big I can't tell what exactly it is.

I really believe in the sharing of knowledge and ideas. But I feel held back, I guess the internet is such a dyslexic unfriendly environment. I think I get HOW we can connect through trying to understand the technology BUT I am not sure I understand the root of why or what it means beyond the concept of sharing a piece of knowledge.
What do you think?

Adesola

Thinking about Dance Literature

Paula asked me to think about literature to do with dance. It is such a wide subject and there are so many perspectives. I am currently writing a chapter for my research - the Literature Review. I start by locating my position (perspective) with in the mind / body paradigm through looking at the different thoughts on and values for the body. I think finding a location within the mind/body paradigm is a good starting point for exploring dance through reading texts. Anna Pakes wrote a paper 'Dances mind/body problem' in Dance Research Journal. Volume 24.2 winter 2006. This article started me off on an interesting journey of asking myself what dualism means to me as a dancer.

Next, I think it is important to acknowledge that some dancers would say you understand dance by dancing - practise based knowledge. This is an epistemological question and it is interesting to look at dance through general epistemological standpoints. Graham McFee wrote 'Understanding Dance' which is a philosophical look at what 'dance' means. And many well known choreographers and dancers have written about their creative process this also leads to analysis of dance - Larry Lavender - 'Dancers Talking Dance - Critical Evaluation in the choreography class' and Doris Humphrey -'The Art of Making Dances'

I have read some of Ann Cooper Albright - 'Choreographing Difference'. I liked the way she writes theoretically and as a practising dancer also. Peter Brinson - 'Dance As Education' is a great history of recent dance in UK. Miranda Tufnell (UK) has written a number of books that look at and support the creative process (in dance). Theresa J. Buckland has edited 'Dance in the field - theory, Method and Issues in Dance Ethnography'.

Surrey, Rohampton, Laban and De Montford have extensive libraries and Cecil Sharp House, English Folk Dance and Song Society has a wonderful library.

For my research chapter - having located the research approach in the mind/body paradigm. I go on to look at literature that is not specific to dance. This because I feel that text and movement are not alternatives to each other so something understood in dance cannot be verbalised in text but strategies for 'understanding' and 'communication' in subjects that are text based can express the feeling and thoughts of movement 'understanding' and 'communication'. Therefore I tend to build bridges between 'subject areas' to create the theoretical framework I am working within. With one all important understanding I need to dance to understand what I think!!! So it is just as important for me to make sure I take two or three classes a week as it is that I go to the library to read. This is not to be elitist, anyone can use this process to understand dance by finding their own relationship with dancing - Bollywood classes, salsa classes, not just professional classes.

So I in my literature review I go on to look at:
Image, language, and presentation of self (Barthes, Saussure, Goffman).

The place of experience in learning (Dewey)

How movement and space are linked (Rasmussen)



Excuse spellings, I think I got most of them
xx

Books

I love Amazon! The strength of the dollar / pound means they can find me any book I look for!!! and tell me what other people read (!) making some really interesting links I would not have thought of.

I am keeping a personal citation library with Endnote. This is also so helpful. It means you can retrieve quotes, ideas and authors very quickly while you are writing.

Two

I am watching 'The Ghost and the Darkness' it is the only scary movie I can watch because I am sort of on the bad guys (lions) side. I was thinking how I would describe the story and how it is advertised are so different. Understanding is a perception.

Thoughts

I am just reading a Saussure for beginners (!). (Because of my interest in Roland Barthes). Saussure lectured on language. One interesting idea is the how communication through language involves two part, a concept (the 'thing') and an acoustic image ("the mental image of a name that allows a language-user to say the name" Gordon, T). These are called the Signified (concept) and Signifier (acoustic image). I won't go into why this is really exciting for my research! But two other things:
1) My Dyslexic self does not always seem to have a link between these two. I can have a thing/concept in my head and not be able to find the word (acoustic image) to say the write word and/or I can read a word and know its meaning by its shape but not how to say it, or know how to say a word but not know what it would look like to write. Do any of you other dyslexics have this??
2) It raises some cool questions about the same process in movement. One of my ballet teachers always said decide how many turns you are going to do, then do them. Is that a concept followed by a physical 'image'? So if I feel dance is a language then can linguistics provide ways to explain the action of dancing to non-dancers or is it just different?

Lastly, getting back to my last blog about trying to better understand the network, "Its about sharing of knowledge not call and response". Part of this is a very vulnerable process because you have to share with no idea of the VALUE that will be placed on what you write. I watched "Julie and Julia" on the plane. (only the first half hour or so when it got to the lobster bit I had to turn it off) I think it has changed my attitude to blogs though. (That and all the research into networks I did over the winter break.)

Can you wordle text and put the image straight onto the blog? I wish I had a picture of what I just wrote here, right under it.

SNOW - HAND IN !!!!

Hand-in From Alan's blog:
"The bad weather is causing severe difficulties with travel, and is likely to continue for the next few days. This may mean work posted to the University will arrive later than expected. Campuses are closed today (Wednesday 6th January) and may remain closed further into this week.

If you have already posted your work, you need take no further action. Work arriving late due to difficulties with postal deliveries will not be penalised.

If you intended handing in your work to Cat hill campus today (Wednesday 6th January), please keep your work with you and check the University web page after 9.30am (www.mdx.ac.uk) each morning to see if the to see if Cat Hill is open. If the Campus is open, please deliver your work to the Student Office if you are able to do so. Please do not take risks travelling if the conditions are dangerous. When conditions permit, please deliver your work to Cat Hill campus. Do not post work after today (Wednesday 6th January) as deliveries are likely to be delayed.

Please note that you will not be penalised for late delivery of work for assessment. We ask that you make reasonable effort to deliver work if the campus is open. Realistically this may be towards the end of this week when the forecast suggests a slackening of snowfall."

Me (Adesola): I have been in the Snow in NYC and just got back! One of my new year re-thinks is to write more on my blog regardless of whether I see comments. It is about a network of travelling info not a call and response.

Hope everyone is keeping warm.

Dec 7th, tasks D and E

It is great to have some comments. Thank you. I have been away from the Internet for the past three days. Laura-Beth’s comment said she was not sure how the session relates to improving her writing for task D or E. I think that we were trying to focus on the Why of task D or E not so much on the How. We wanted to support understanding; the reasoning behind the tasks thinking that if you understand why something is required then you will be able to investigate how to do it. I would investigate (research) how to write academically through looking at the Rubric on Peter and Paula’s blogs and through standard instruction books that give advice, and through reading academic literature. But why are we asking you to do this? And why are we asking you to do this at this point in the course? This is where the learning is for you beyond acquiring a skill in writing because we told you to.

The idea was that task D & E are about communication of ideas. We are then going on to say that there are specific ways or style of communication for this kind of work – academic writing. The session was to raise questions for you about your personal style of communication to find ways to link this to the tasks so that they are meaningful to you and more than a tick-box requirement.

Donna commented that she feels that the ‘rule’ of academia are to think as if you are in a debate. I know what she means and this is an example of having your own relationship – making the tasks mean something to you. (That is how this course will be useful to you beyond the year or so of the course). For me I imagine academic writing as it being really important to be gentle and not to assume anything, to feel as if you are a part of something being goingly constructed and you want the bits you add to be strong and supportive, not collapse if someone started using it. Also you want to add gently with respect and knowledge about how other people have added to the construction. Donna also asks “Regarding tasks D & E, I’m having a little trouble deciding what to write about, do all the different writings have to be about the same thing?”
I would just say it is the way you write not what you write that we are asking about.

Rachel talked about the academic style and the Literature Review. A literature review is to tell us about what other people have said (written about) the things you are talking about. You then summarize this into a document that is a Literature Review (just like a review of a play it summarizes what happened and who was involved and what they said). It gives us a sense of what is going on. This will also be written in an academic style.

I think that continual reference back to the information you found about Kolb’s learning cycle will be useful. What we are trying to do in this first module is to help to define yourself through what you have done and your interests i.e. the information on your blogs. Also to identify yourself in terms of starting to know how you learn and then saying now for you to engage with this course you need to start to find your own voice within the academic arena. This is a life-long process but the first step is to start to learn how you write in the academic style.

I know for some people myself included writing is really not a preferred mode of communication. But remember it is just a way to communicate. The first part of the session on Dec 7th was saying that you can still think and work things out in your preferred form. But to be heard in academia you need to be able to learn to communicate in its language to some extent, (and you want a BA hons which is an academic certificate. This can come with a wealth of history (baggage). I got laughed at a by people because of my spelling and because I miss out words and letters sometimes when I write and because the spell check can put the wrong word in. BUT don’t worry remember your writing is not your thinking, believe in your thinking and try your best to take this opportunity to learn a little about how to write in this particular way.

Campus Session (Dec 7th)

Yesterday (December 7th) we had a campus session based around task D & E.
The first half was looking at what made a productive conversation, communication. This related to both tasks but was aimed more at task E (the conversations through the comments). In task E you are asked to comment on each other’s work.

The second half of the session looked at the style of academic writing. You are asked to use this style in both task D & E.

This blog is an overview of the campus session (what we did) for those who could not make it and a reminder for those who were there. I am also hoping both people who came and those who could not be there will comment about this blog.

First half of the session:
This was a movement-based session. We wanted to look at how people engage, interact with each other. We were thinking about what makes a ‘good’ productive, stimulating conversation. In a way we are saying that academia is about engaging in a large conversation. It is about ways to understand and explain ideas across people who are quite spread apart (both in distance and in time). In other words academia has conventions of communication, (the academic style of writing that is asked for in task D & E is one of these conventions). These conventions have developed as ways to carry on useful and engaged conversations across distance (for instance between people in universities across the globe) and across time (for instance to develop ideas people who wrote in 1700 had in today’s world). In task D & E we want you to start to learn how to write within these conventions (in academic style) so that your ideas can fit into productive learning conversations through the blogs and comments.

But how do you have a conversation? We wanted to look at the personal values and feelings that people had about engaging in conversation. We wanted to see what a conversation looked like! We did this by replacing words with movements. We asked each person to choose three words that were elements of a productive conversation (these were elements like ‘respect’, ‘re-evaluation’, ‘questioning’ ‘passionate’ ‘quality’). Each word had a type of movement that would represent the word. For instance passionate was a big movement and quality was a slow movement.

We imagined the room was a metaphor for a conversation, stepping into the room was the same as stepping into a conversation. When we stepped into the conversation (room) we would execute the movements we had that represented our three important elements of a productive conversation. The movements were a physical representation of what each person individually valued as elements of a productive conversation.

We stood around the edge of the room. But before we could start we needed a reason to begin, enter a conversation (enter the movement space) and a reason to stop leave the conversation (leave the movement space). Each person made-up a personal rule for beginning and ending the conversation ‘dance based on their feelings about starting and ending a conversation in ‘real’ life. We did not know what each other’s rules to begin or end were. But we knew they were rules that were similar to their feelings about starting a conversation. Music was put on and people could start the conversation ‘dance’ as soon as their rule to start (enter the space) was met.

The first time we did it people waited on the edge for sometime and then a couple of people started moving others joined in and then the whole thing seemed to come to an end pretty quickly. We then talked about what had happened – we felt it looked like people had not stuck to their rules for starting.

Feedback from participants:
People had wanted to stick to their rules for starting but then felt they had to do something so just did anything. Then they felt sorry for other people who were out in the space moving so they joined in but finished as soon as they could. Once a little bit (token amount) of movement had taken place they felt they had done their bit and left. The whole thing finished quite quickly.

That’s what it looked like.

What did we feel this meant: we felt that starting the conversation because you felt you had to or felt sorry for someone meant that you didn’t bring much to it other than being there. It was not productive because as soon as you had done your ‘bit’ you left. Also there was nothing to really interest you because you only joined in to be polite not because you had anything to add or say. People said that the blogs could feel like this; because they don’t know people they felt they needed to be polite and say something but didn’t really want to do any more than that. They did not really write things to engage people more to acknowledge they were there.
We asked the questions; how can you become interested in something? What makes you interested?

We tried the dance again, this time everyone had to wait until their rule for stepping into the space was met and not just join in to be polite! We put the music on………………………………………………no body moved………………..no body began……………………we stopped for feedback.

Feedback from participants:
Nobody moved because nobody else did anything that would make them start.
They all had rules to start to engage that relied on someone else starting first; we asked how this reflected on the blog space. In truth no-body would really start to comment on each other unless someone else did first. This was understandable if we were looking at conversation in general but we were looking at a productive learning conversation. We asked participants if they needed to re-evaluate their rule for beginning to engage. Did they need to ask themselves if it was productive to wait for someone else to be engaged before you were? We said nobody had to change their starting rule but they could if they wanted to and I joined in the next one with my starting rule which allows me to just start – as an advisor I felt my starting rule should be just begin as soon as the music starts.

We tried it again, this time some people started with big (passion) movements. There was a lot of interaction.

Feedback from participants:
One person noticed that passion as a big movement can be a little overwhelming and sometimes it needs to be small and intense. (Maybe considered and focused).
Another person found that people who stuck to being respectful or polite where hard to dance with after a little while because you could not get beyond the same polite movement.
Other people noticed that the comfort place for most people was to be doing the polite movement because it was safe!
Some people that did the personal conversation movement ended up drifting from person to person.
When people got into a rhythm with someone else they felt quite relieved, but people outside of that small group felt that it was hard to enter the group. They felt the group was much more organised than it really was.

Do you think these observations could apply to the blog spaces too?

We did the dance a few times developing the rules and trying things out as we noticed them in feedback. At the end people were asked to write what they see, what this made them think and what they wondered.
See:
Compassion
People have some connection
It was very random, but with power
Hesitation
Many instances of copying
Observation what happens when people observe each other and situations?
Lots of copying
Lots of copying of movement (respect)
Copying!
Copying
Small groups formed

Think:
Each exercise was very different
She’s shy
People will only engage in movement (conversation) fully if they are interested
People’s attention has to be grabbed
A lot people copying
Educational
The group are not trusting each other at first maybe near the end a bit more
It’s ok to play a small part in a conversation as long as you are involved
Breaking the ice

Wonder:
How it was ever going to end?
If some people don’t comment because of lack of trust or lack of confidence?
Does this reflect each person?
Is it ok to not be drawn in?
What was your rule?
What made the conversation easier?
How important are rules?
How it was going to end?
When to start coming in?
What made you change your mind?

Have a look at what they wrote and see if you think they apply to the blogs and the activity of the comments on blogs.

Overall we felt we learnt a lot about how conventions of politeness and respect could get in the way of having a productive conversation. This was because we were not their as friends and we didn’t know each other very well but we need to get to the ‘meat’ of the conversation without feeling we were being rude.

This is the problem that academia has tried to solve; how do you talk to someone in a university hundreds of miles away who you have never met but about something that you are quite passionate about. THIS IS WHY ACADEMIA HAS CONVENTIONS AND RULES – FOR INSTANCE A PARTICULAR WAY TO WRITE . Academic writing is just about another set of rules to be polite but to cut to the chase and get on with the interesting learning conversation. This led to the second part of the session which was about looking at the conventions of academic writing in ore detail.

I led the first part of the session. The way of working is my way of looking at embodiment, how the body can be a part of a whole understanding. Some of the research for this part of the session was done with Prof. Anna Craft a few years ago. The ideas are part of some research I am doing at the moment about the body, environment and learning

Paula led the second half of the session. We looked at the idea that writing in academic style use conventions as we said above. These conventions are to aid with neutrality, exchange of ideas, critiques, statements and concepts. We looked at the idea that a set of concepts forms a theory. When writing in an academic style you express and explore concepts and theory. It is important to have these to allow the Reader to understand where your points are coming from, why you are taking a particular point of view.

Paula introduced the idea of Critical Thinking as a process that is used to think about topics and issues. In small groups we did some exercises discussing (having a conversation about a topic), writing down some concepts and theories that different people in the conversation had.

We looked at the important distinction between the content of some written text (WHAT it is about) and the structure of some written text (HOW it is written). We said that academic writing, marketing and descriptive writing are all structures for writing. (They are about How it is written)

To summarise: in the first half of the session we discovered why it important to have conventions for communication that support the kind of conversation you need to have. We identified where our personal conventions for engaging in a conversation might need to change. That we may need to have a distinction between our personal rules for engaging with people in general and our personal rules for engaging in an academic context.

In the second half of the session we looked at some practical examples of the conventions within academic writing and we practised some writing in small groups.

Other things:
People pointed out how frightening the posting of blogs is, especially if you are not sure about spelling. We talked about using spellcheck and reading your work to someone. We talked about the importance of getting help if you have dyslexia. I have dyslexia, I have a step by step guilde to what to do to try to get government help as a pdf on the communication page of my website. (If you want to look at it)
We talked about the difference between facebook and the blogs. How the people on facebook are people you know but the people on the blogs are not and you would not know them if it was not for this course.

So what do you think about all this? PLEASE comment

Looking at people's blogs

I have looked at some of the blog sites. (I have tried to comment, just to say "hi, I looked").They all look amazing, it seems like people are really figuring out the ins-and-outs of making them.

Some people have put short posts on thoughts which are like excerpts from reflective diaries, I think these work really well because sharing them on your blog means that you can get other people thinking too. Of course not all thoughts are so formed that you can type them up and post them and the Reflective Diary comes into its own in those cases because you can keep adding to your ideas etc...

There are some great videos on people's sites too. I am a very visual person so I enjoy watching them. Have you thought about putting sound on your site or links to songs?

Keep up the good work

House Keeping / Getting started

Just a reminder that:

My on-going call in times are Wednesday 8am to 9am & Friday 7:30pm to 8:30pm
If you need to talk to me at a specific time other than these or want to organise a SKYPE call please e-mail me four days in advance of the date you want to talk. This way we can make sure we are both on the same time zone, etc...!!!

If you are sending me work (try to) attach it as a Word document in an e-mail. Make sure all your work has numbered pages and your full name in the footer. Please, send work in this form even if you are also sending hard copies; this means I can mark the work and send it straight back to you. It is quicker and easier to comment onto the work.

PLEASE, make some comments on my blog. I am interested to know what you think of the films I put up. Are you using Reflective Diaries? What kind? Any tips?

Reflective Diaries

Hi
Just some quick thoughts about Reflective Diaries, or artists note books or learning logs, there are many names for them (and they maybe a little different from each other) but I think the most important thing about them is that they help you find a place to put your thoughts and ideas so. A place to put you. I found the recommended reading - Jennifer Moon, Learning Journals - really helpful.

As I said in the induction day I now number the pages of my Reflective Diary so that I can refer back to it. As you start the year it is really good to start making a little bit of time to write and capture your thoughts and experiences.

Why research analysis is so important; it's not all data collection!

Communities, how we voice 'together' in the Arts can impact on a wider society

Reasons for why the Arts and Education are important

Another shift!

The sharing of thoughts

I am making this blog as part of an idea of sharing professional practise and inquiry into how a conversation can develop across spaces. It is quite daunting mostly because I am dyslexic and the thought of writing something that can then be read by anyone, anywhere is frightening. But of course that is the point and so far I have one follower - not to worry then!

We are going to ask students to make a blog as part of a Professional Practise course, so I wanted to know what making a blog would entailed; and of course be there in the community that we hope will be built from this. In beginning to build the blog though, another important process comes to light and that is noticing how I learn. I started from not knowing how to build a blog. What stories do I have in my head that I turn-on when I want to give up? What strategies do I employ to get the courage to try? How do I learn best - trial and error, read all about it first, look at examples of other peoples blogs? When we ask the students to do this it will be just as much about asking them to start to notice how they learn and accomplish tasks as it will be about getting them to have a profile and begin to engage in conversation and the sharing of thoughts.