It’s not “win or lose”, it’s “win or learn”!

I was delivering an “Assertiveness” training course last week and used a phrase ”win or learn”. I have no idea where it came from; perhaps it was something I had heard before and filed away for a rainy day, or perhaps it was a “caroline-ism” that was coined in the heat of the moment. Whatever its root, it turns out the phrase made an impact to one particular person I was training, as it dawned on them “even if something goes worse than I thought, I can still use it to learn how to handle it next time”. Could this be a snippet of reflection in the training room? Was I promoting reflection, as defined by Dewey,“to enable students to learn to learn from experience, or to make greater use of learning where there is no formal guidance or teaching.”? 

If you asked me this time last week what my attitude to reflection was, I could have answered from my personal perspective and from the a learning context. From studying this module, how I view how I reflect hasn’t changed, but I have been awakened to the learning context and to be honest, challenged in my use of reflection.

Firstly, looking at myself, I would definitely describe myself as a reflector. I have always been to some extent, however I would say it has very much come to fruition over the last 2 years, having dealt with a series of unpleasant personal experiences. In some respect, I see now how reflection has shaped and strengthened my coping mechanism. In the context of problem solving, I “mull over” problems to help find a solution (I might also put this down to my stubbornness and determination to prove that for every problem there has to be, an often simple, solution!). I also know that the best place for me to reflect is in the car on the way home, often from work. This has reaped far more answers for me, compared to "dwelling" on the issue at my desk. Reflection to me personally is best defined as

“..a form of mental processing…that we use to fulfill a purpose or to achieve some anticipated outcome. It is applied to relatively complicated or unstructured ideas for which there is not an obvious solution…” (based on Moon 1999):

When it comes to the learning context, I would have said I see it as quite integral part. I suppose I’ve always been in the Kolb train of thought (have an experience, reflect on the experience, learn from experience then try what you have learned). I would say I do promote reflection inside the training room, however this module is challenging me to think “do I promote it outside of the training room?”

Most of my training sessions start with a time of reflection (which I’ve just realised). An example of this would be for “Time Management” course where I pose the questions at the start “Tell me a time you would have liked to better manage your time. How did you feel during the experience? How did you feel after? What would you have preferred the outcome to be? What would you have done differently to achieve this outcome?”

At the end of a training session:
Yes I do ask all to share how the new learning’s will make a difference.
Yes I do encourage all to use their new skills/behaviours and seek opportunities to put them into practice.
Yes I do let them know that in 3 months time I’ll send them an evaluation to complete so I can measure the return on investment of the training.

But do I encourage them to step back at different stages, to pause and reflect on how they are getting on? To celebrate what they have acheived or learn from what they think could have gone better?

No I don’t think I do.

Now to me, the reality is reflection is almost as important as the initial learning as this is where the development continues and the maturity in that subject.

The million dollar question then is how to instigate a “reflective culture”? I think this is something that will be reflected on in my coming car journeys home!

REFERENCES

Moon, J. (2001) ‘PDP working paper 4: reflection in higher education learning’ (online), The Higher Education Academy. Available from: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/resources/resourcedatabase/id72_Reflection_in_Higher_Education_Learning.rtf (last accessed 8 June 2011).

Reflection 2.2

This week was our first collaborative group exercise, in which we had identify the drivers of eportfolio developments.

To be honest, when I first looked through the group exercise I wondered what relevance it would have to me and my development to know why UK, USA, Europe and beyond are driving eportfolios. As I journey towards becoming an elearning professional, what I found more relevant was understanding what eportfolios are and their benefits and limitations. This is the focus I tend to, and need to take on a daily basis, as it allows me to reflect what the impact will be of eportfolios in my workplace. I feel after all the core reading, I am in a better position to do so.  


The skills needed to work together in an online group are quite different to a face to face class, where you have a class at specfic times in the week. What is difficult about distant learning is by nature, it is flexible. For example I knew that the week was going to be particularly busy time for me, with limited time to log on, so most of my time was spent offline, reading and making notes. That’s why at the start of the task, I posted on the forum suggested groups of who could take on particular regions, so that I knew where to focus my reading,

Apart from that example, I don’t feel I was particularly proactive in leading, informing, or motivating the group, as the limited time I had online was mainly spent making sure I had uploaded all I had to, understanding how to set up a wiki  and having a look through the posts. I suppose I was also still “finding my feet” and getting used to this new way of studying. This is something I want to change in the future, as I know I can lead, inform and motivate “offline”, which I am comfortable with, so want to transfer these skills to “online”.
On my part, there was very limited additional discussion in the forum. My focus was more on getting though the core reading to update the drivers template. I suppose the fact that we came up with a template that everyone agreed on meant that we were all on the same wavelength to some extent? There was discussion in the forum of which I tended to agree and that's what I voiced.


Overall I feel the completion of this task is most relevant to my research competency due to the vast amount of core reading that has definitely increasde my knowledge of eportfolios by 600%! There was also a touch of technical skills in terms of wiki set up of how to set up wikis (as mentioned in my previous blog).

What I know this week that I didn’t last week…

You can learn a lot in a week…although in the same breath, it can feel that you forget a lot in a week too! It is simple to reflect on what you have learnt in the past week if it was something significant. I think it is easier to pick out these “eureka” moments from childhood – last week I couldn’t ride my bike, this week I can; last week I couldn’t tie my shoe laces, this week I can; last week I couldn’t count to 10, this week I can. As I get older, these “significant” learnings tend to be replaced with the question of how my knowledge in a specific area has grown within the week.

I suppose in the context of this course, I can clearly identify two area that I didn't know as much about about this time last week, and they are eportfolios and wikis.

I mentioned in a previous blog that when it comes to technology, at times I realise that I have been using something or have awareness but never realise what the proper term is – I feel this is exactly the route I have gone down with eportfolios. I knew what a portfolio was, and as per my first blog , I know what an “e” in front of something means, so by putting these 2 facts together, I worked out that it must be some sort of online/electronic collection of evidence. From all the reading and research of this week, I guess my instinct wasn’t far off.

As for wikis, I do use something similar to a wiki in work, but again I had never heard it referred to under this name. I just refer to it as a “shared document” or “an online document to update”. In the first week of the course, I had updated one so I am comfortable with how to edit (which is very similar to your standard Microsoft tools). I wasn’t aware this time last week how to set one up and that’s why I shouted for “help” in our group forum. So now I can set up and edit a wiki as if my life depended on it. It may not look pretty or glamorous, but thankfully at this stage, that’s not the point of it!

So that’s what I have learnt this week, I’m sure the coming weeks will have lots more learnings!

Technology and me - do we go together like a horse and carriage?

It’s my dad’s 60^th birthday today. He had never switched a computer on in his life until 20^th May 2007. I remember the exact date as it was the night before I moved to Sri Lanka for 6 months.  I basically set up an email account for him and showed him step by step how to write and read an email. From that day on, I think I got an email a day!  5 years on he can navigate around the World Wide Web, he still has his moments (asking me about “microwave office”) but he gets by.

I’m using this entry to reflect on my technical skills. I would say technology and I have a similar relationship as my dad has with the internet – I get by. I tend to be a quick learner, and when it comes to technology, I learn my doing. I like to keep it simple and learn what I need to know about it and then as I use it more, I experiment and build upon my skills. I find that if I am first introduced to something technical by listening to what people have to say about it or reading it, then my head converts it into something far more complex, so I prefer to dabble in it myself. The realisation then is either a) its not too bad b) o is that what it is, I’ve used that but never knew it was called that, or c) yes I still don’t understand it, someone talk me through it in very simple terms!

At the moment, Wiki, google apps, eportfolios are all a foreign language to me, however I know as I start to investigate them and use them, we will hopefully develop a great relationship!

Reflecting on train drivers

I’ve just begun a 2 hour train journey to Dublin and I find myself thinking about the train driver. I have never met him, I’m not likely to see him, I don’t know how many times he has navigated this route (for all I know this may be his maiden voyage), I don’t even know if “he” is a he! What I do know about him is that I’ve placed my trust in his expertise and knowledge to get me safely to my destination. So would I be correct then in calling the train driver a “professional” and as I drive elearning, does that make me an “Elearning Professional”?

When I first started this course, the word “professional” conjured up thoughts of a person with experience, knowledge and expertise in an area or number of areas. People who I want to learn from, ask their opinions or seek advice. But as I reflect and read other views, I’m wondering if my idea of professionalism is more associated with expertise - is a professional an expert and an expert a professional, or can they be mutually exclusive?

In the first week, members of the course team shared their views on the very notion of what professionalism is, amongst other thoughts. One posed “part of being professional is that you’re always learning, updating and developing the field you belong to”. I see this as one of the key reasons as to why I’m doing this course and to me, the real impact it has on me will only be seen when I implement what I have learned and put it into practice, as with any learning. My views fall in line with another member of the course team who stated “the sense of being professional is really a combination of good old research and practice”. In my opinion, I could sit back and rhyme off all the theory, which I believe would make me an expert, but rolling up my sleeves and putting it into practice would then cross the line into becoming a professional.

I expect my thoughts on an “Elearning Professional” to change as I delve deeper into this course. I’m not someone who tends to get bogged down with what “box” I should fit into, however I understand why it is important to distinguish. By the end of this course, I want to have an elearning toolkit which equips me with both the technical and theoretical knowledge to drive a credible, enthusiastic and knowledgeable elearning journey within my field, which compliments and blends with the other types of learning offered. If some then decide to label me as a “professional”, “expert”, “expert professional” or all or none of the above, then who am I to argue! As long as in myself, I am confident in what I have achieved and how I can progress it.

And as for the train driver, as I have arrived safely at my destination, I would class him as an expert in his profession!

Elearning…I know what it is, don’t I?

Emails. Ecards. Ebanking…I'm surrounded by “E’s”.

I can easily send and receive 30+ emails every working day. But outside of the dreaded bills, I would say I have probably only received 30 handwritten letters in my entire lifetime!

No longer do I have to go into a card shop to pick a birthday card from a limited selection, I can now personalise one online and get it delivered straight to the recipiant without even having to put a pen to paper.

I remember booking my first holiday away with friends and each of them giving me a cheque for their share of the cost. Now with a few clicks of a button, the money is directly deposited into my account.

I lived in Sri Lanka for 6 months and I don’t know how I would have survived without emails. An email home can be sent and I’d have a reply within an hour with the latest news – I remember skyping my parents and informing them of some “home” news before they had even heard, yet I was 5500 miles away! But do you know what I loved? The days the postman arrived, rang the bell and handed me a letter addressed to me. Holding something physical and reading the handwriting of someone you missed thousands of miles away, felt like the closest thing to a hug from them (cheesy but true). There was a place for email and there was a place for snail mail during this time.

So just like all the other “E’s”, learning has entered the virtual, electronic world. No longer do we need to co-ordinate the diaries of 50 people to pass on the latest information, instead a podcast can be recorded for the 50 people to listen at their own convenience within a 5 day period.

BUT….Just as there still is a place for a handwritten letter, birthday card and going into a bank, there still is a place for a face to face learning experience. And just as there is a place for sending an email, ecard or using ebanking, there is also a place for elearning. Used together and in the right way, they can only complement each other.

The purpose of this blog is for me to reflect on elearning and all that it means as I journey though the Open University module “The Elearning Professional”. I have deliberately put “The Elearning Professional” in quotation marks, as that is the first thing to ponder….is there such a thing and if so, what is it?