Monday 15th October

Today is the start of Week 3 and as your module handbook states you should be moving on to tackle the second set of tasks. At this point it is useful to review how the first set of tasks were handled. Not everyone appears to have managed to complete all the tasks but what has been achieved collectively so far is quite impressive. Clearly the two most important tasks were the CV task which gets you to think about your knowledge and learning gained thus far in your professional practice through both your education and your work and Task 1B.

Compiling a CV is an exercise designed for potential employers but in doing this you should be engaging in an element of self analysis and asking internal questions such as what am I good at and where could I could develop or what direction would I like my future career to take.

Sarah Robinson has taken on board some advice about including achievement on a CV and reworked hers while Emily Hunt provides some advice found on the BBC website in her blog. 

Task 1B was handled well by Anastasia Hadjigeorgiou who drew out the notion of Collective Intelligence in Web 2.0 while Melanie Brown applied the Web 2.0 readings to professional practice as well as highlighting some downsides. Hannah Stewart succeeded in including both the readings in her 1B task as well as referring to other student blogs and there was early evidence from Jonny Howard that he had actively looked at other student blogs for pointers in his own learning and development.

In the video task, Chelsie Johnson stated that she was looking forward to learning from others and Emily Hunt was exactly spot on with her timing at exactly 45 seconds while Lee Taylor chose a graphical interface on his video offering.

The Web offers the opportunity to look outside the student blogs and the recommended readings for resources to stimulate us. Katy Thorpe has embedded a thought provoking resource on her recent blog post. It’s a slide show called “Shift Happens” and thank you, Katy for bringing this to my attention. I was struck by some of the stark statistics contained in the presentation and rather than be depressed about it I take courage from the fact that we humans are highly adaptable and that in Higher Education what we are keen to do is to develop in our future graduates the skills of critical thinking and analysis which will see them through a lifetime.  Technologies come and go and mastering these is something we will succeed in doing as we need them for our professional practice or communication. What is of deeper importance is learning more about our discipline and professional practice and to manipulate the relevant technologies to enable this to happen.

Ken Robinson's talk on TED covers some of the same ground in Shift Happens but also recognizes the different styles of learning and the importance of creativity in the curriculum and I commend it to you. 

Campus Session 1: Module 1 - 9th October

We had a brilliant session today with eager and willing contributions.  We spent the first 20 mins giving space to read an article referred to in the Professional Communication Technologies Reader and located under the Module Tab (Specific Links) in Libguides then everyone fed back the importance of the article they had read to the group.

The first article discussed was by Lankshear and the themes identified were discourse and how we communicate through it. The concept of literacy also arose. Both “discourse” and “literacy” were discussed further in the group. The discourse discussion was placed in the context that language gives meaning to professional groups. The discussion on literacy moved from ability to read and write to consider the necessity to master information literacy and media and communication literacy.

A question that Gruber posed about the Web 2.0 world is how much information is trustworthy and what is the truth of knowledge. Reich’s view of Web 2.0 was that it lowered the cost of participation and considers who uses it and how it is constantly developing.  Ullrich et al illuminated understanding of constructivism in that knowledge cannot be taught but is rather learned and assessed the contribution that Web 2.0 makes towards this approach to learning. O’Reilly’s distinctive contribution is that Web 2.0 is delivered as a service rather than a product. Themes of information literacy emerged in the Lorenzo article alongside issues of security and the implied risks from the ability to change information on Web 2.0 platforms. Bruns’ ideas on “produsage” emphasizes the collaborative sharing of information in order to support the knowledge management agenda.

This was a very useful exercise in that it got participants actively involved in reading the texts, making notes and reporting back. In the time available no-one actually had time to finish reading their article but yet, at the end of 20 mins, all were surprised by how much they had achieved. It was also useful to hear about the different authors and participants could identify particular articles which they would like to delve further into in order to help them complete Task 1b.

After all that reading we played a game. Everyone was given a card with a word written on it and were asked to provide a definition of the word so that everyone could guess what it was. This exercise was fun and useful in that we could ensure a common understanding of the meaning and use of these words. Try it yourself at home to come up with a definition for…

• Web 2.0
• Blog
• Wiki
• Plagiarism
• Learning
• Communication
• Collaboration
• Convergence
• Knowledge

We went off to consider “Communication” at a deeper level and we formed into three groups and three different kinds of communication were considered. These were:

• 1 to 1
• 1 to Many
• Many to Many

The groups identified examples of each of the above and suggested particular advantages to each. The following was fed back…

1 to 1

Examples are phone calls, letters, e-mails, face to face meeting. Advantages suggested were that it was non-filtered, personal, intimate, more to the point and relevant.

1 to Many

Examples come from the broadcast media and include newspapers, radio, TV. The advantages are that it is a reliable resource, there is control therefore less confusion and that it’s for mass consumption (therefore efficient?)  Downsides were also considered such as influence of ownership of broadcast media and whether it is propaganda or censored.

Many to Many

Examples are social media such as Facebook, Conferences, Blogs and You tube. The advantages are that more questions can be asked, there is more energy and there is the opportunity to create through performance.

What can happen to a piece of communication in each of the above? 

Consider that such a piece is taking a stand from a position of A. In 1 to 1, there is the chance that the position could shift to B or even C. In 1 to Many, the position does not move from A. It has been broadcast and there it remains at position A. Such pieces can raise discussion etc. but the actual piece remains static. In Many to Many, the position can shift the entire alphabet from A to Z and back again over a period of time which links in with the “long tail” referred to by Ullrich et.al.

We concluded the session with each group doing a short presentation on

3 WAYS PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES CAN ENHANCE PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

If I could do my degree again what would I do differently?

Professor Tara Brabazon is joining our School in Middlesex in January and she has produced a short podcast which is worth taking 12 mins or so time out to listen to...

A new month … a new start

Today is the first day of teaching in the academic calendar of Middlesex University and this is a welcome from me to all our new students embarking on their BA Professional Practice programme of study. We met a group of new starters at our induction day last week and besides introducing you to the wider university systems and services we spent time looking at Module 1.

We explained the three themes involved in the module and the related readers and tasks attached to each of these themes. All those doing the module need to set up a blog where the tasks will be posted. These will be reviewed by the tutors who will give generic feedback on their own blogs.

In the course of the induction session we asked those present to think of something they were good at. Then we asked them to think about “how” they got good at it. The discussion showed that people got good at something through trial and error, continuous practice, learning from peers / mentors, and from other sources eg. Books, web sources etc. Getting good at something involves a change in the way you do something and in the context of professional practice it involves transforming your professional practice. Central to all this is the practice of REFLECTION something that you will develop as you proceed through the module and the programme.

For the moment, I encourage you to get started by setting up your blog and reading your Handbook for Module 1. Get to grips with what is required – as emerging professionals you will need to learn to manage your time in completing this programme. I hope you will enjoy it as much as our previous students have.

Fare thee well, Trent Park

For the last year the academic and administrative Professional Practice Team have been located in Trent Park. We are now based in at the Hendon Campus in the Grove Building, but all of us, Alan, Adesola, Avni, Paula and myself feel lucky that we got the chance to have worked on this fabulous campus.

Trent Park started out as a hunting ground for Henry IV, seven centuries ago and ended up as a campus for Middlesex University – a home for the performing arts of Theatre, Dance and Music as well as a Teacher Training College after the war. In between times famous visitors included Winston Churchill and Charlie Chaplin. During WWII it served as a splendid POW camp for German officers. Middlesex University are leaving this unique place at the end of August 2012 and the following clips are of a specially designed performance organized by the Education Deprtment charting its story. This performance happened on one of our last days on this campus. As the script says – the trees have been here long before any of us and Trent Park will live on and re-invent itself again. We can be sure that the next occupants will appreciate its beauty as much as we did. Fare thee well…



and part 2 ....

What the Media Sector want of Graduates

I attended BBC Academy Open Day for Universities yesterday. Top executives shared with a group of academics from UK universities their ideas on graduates' skills and knowledge. Below is a summary of their main points:

Lucy Adams – Director of Business Operations, BBC and Pat Younge – Chief Creative Officer, BBC opened the session and in summary explained what they would like from graduates:

Able to defend opinion
Adaptability
Attitude
Comfortable with ambiguity & change
Fusion of skills … towards a polymath
Mental Agility
Need to know how to think
Perseverance of opinions

Pat Younge told us about a kid called Jamal with a dream of working in television. So what did he do? He started SBTV. “What started out four years ago as a teenager, his handycam and a YouTube account, has now evolved into a ten-strong production team who have come together to create something fresh, new and exciting. Founder of SB.TV, Jamal Edwards, set out with no expectations when he first began running around his local west London estate filming with the latest hot grime MCs from around his area. Today that’s all changed and SB.TV the brand, with their 50+ million YouTube views and tens of thousands of subscribers, Facebook fans & twitter followers, have some serious plans for global domination”. SBTV Website
The implied suggestion here is that Jamal could not have succeeded without the qualities listed above.

David Doherty, made a keynote presentation and a summary of his points is below:
Revolution in communications, digital and IT is just beginning – speed and storage issues will disappear
Traditional methods of leadership will work no longer – Leadership in hierarchical structure is cracking up
Universities need to help graduates learn how to learn … teach people how to think
Aptitudes which will win out he suggested:
Self awareness
Multi-cultural collaboration
Understanding
Networking
Negotiating
Drive
Resilience
Capacity to develop new skills and behaviors
Excellent communication skills

A skill is a repeatable process in a predictable environment – it can be learnt through continuous practice. Expertise on the other hand is the application of theory to practice.
Myles Runham – Producer of the One Show claimed the following were qualities he looked for:
Curiousity
Scepticism
Analytical skills
Ability to differentiate between fact and PR
Specialist knowledge
Camilla Lewis, Independent Producer values these qualities
Having something to say
Passion
Drive
Interest
Huw Edwards, Newsreader mentioned
A hinterland of interest
Curiousity about how the world works

Campus Session 3, Module 2, 23rd March

Yesterday’s campus session for Module 2 students opened up a discussion on the various research tools which could be employed in the inquiry. The discussion focused initially on the differences between qualitative and quantitative data and various qualities attached to these two types. The implications of the data type focused on what we do with the data during the inquiry and we agreed that we have to “make sense” of the data – try to draw conclusions and inferences from it in relation to our inquiry topic.

Surveys….

Produce essentially quantitative data i.e. is that which we can count – from this we elicit factual assumptions. And while the method can be useful for collecting a great deal of data very quickly, it comes with the risk of being superficial and does not go deeper in uncovering reasons behind preferences for instances. However, there are a range of different question types which can be used in designing a questionnaire ….which can lead to richer data. There is an opportunity in surveys for asking open-ended questions which can produce some qualitative data for interpretation. This slide show below indicates the different question types which can be used:

Surveys

View more PowerPoint from Rosemary McGuinness

Interviews

These provide qualitative data which is textual. The challenge here is the analysis whereby themes have to be sought and perhaps then quantified. We could all imagine having a mass of textual data and using highlighter pens to identify certain themes or opinions throughout the data. Practical issues about organizing interviews were discussed and suggestions made on location and that telephone / skype interviews are a possibility. Recording the interviews was also discussed and the practice of note taking. Good practice would be to provide a list of the themes to be covered in the interview to interviewees in advance and to ensure that questions asked could not lead to a yes / no answer. Interviews are there to uncover feelings, attitudes, reasons etc and interviewers should have probing questions to deal with this …. Could you explain that? Why do you think that happened? How did that come about? etc.

Observations

Can produce very useful data about the topic. For instance, survey respondents / interviewees could respond with what they think the “right” answer is and / or to offer you what they think you want to hear. An observation could reveal that the practice is different. A risk with observations is that the observer can influence behaviors and therefore a true picture is not being captured. Generally, the longer the observer can spend gathering data can minimize this risk. Observations can produce both quantitative or qualitative data. Quantitative data such as how many times, how long etc. Qualitative data takes the form of field notes describing situations, locations, people’s actions, body language dress etc.

Focus Groups

Can be useful in gathering a lot of qualitative data very quickly. For instance, if you intend to interview 6 dance students for instance – instead of individual interviews a focus group to with the 6 could produce the data you want. However, focus groups can be difficult to organize as you need a location, an agreed time and there are challenges in gathering the data as the inquirer will not only have to facilitate the discussion but will need to record the data. There is also the practical issue of managing individuals in the focus group to enable all participants to have a say and not allow one highly opinionated person to dominate the group. It can be challenging also to ensure that the discussion stays relevant to your inquiry and the group discussion does not go off on a tangent. Attention was drawn to Google Plus which offers a hangout facility (like a super skype) where you can have up to 8 people participating in a conversation where all can be seen and heard on the computer. Google plus requires you to have a gmail address …

Using more than one tool …

This can be useful in triangulating data – in order to double check results and data. It can also be used in a linear inquiry whereby data is gathered e.g. from survey and analysed and then the knowledge from this process is used to go deeper into the inquiry using another inquiry tool.

Literature Review

Towards the end of the session, we looked at this issue and how to go about it. The advice given was that you should aim to interrogate the literature. What contribution does it make to your inquiry? What questions does it NOT answer? Where does the piece sit in relation to other views (from literature). I told the group what a former colleague of mine used to advise students. If you want to get a D then describe … but if you want to get an A, then analyse! I came across this slide show which is highlights some of the issues in conducting a literature review.

Doing a Literature Review

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