you will be able to:
* Review and evaluate PDP in relation to your learning pathway
* Reflect on and evaluate strengths and weaknesses
* demonstrate a critical approach when relating literature and theory to practice
* collaborate in online communities to provide peer learning support

Some notes about the method employed in this module.

I am completing the 'writing up' phase of the report without the benefit of any internet access at home due to the planned cessation of service by my former provider in the area where I live. This means I don't have access to any of my blog, my Learning Journal, to messages either sent or received in the Firstclass community, or to other online web services up on which I have grown strongly dependent, but I do have an offline copy of my year's work , in other words only the reports, to refer to. I am attempting to view this situation as an interesting challenge.

I'm using a webpage format as always,rather than the filemaker-based form with text boxes provided, having copied the sections and guidelines verbatim from the tool, with the late amendments included as additional text rather than replacing that which has already been issued.

The importance of taking responsibility for my own learning

It's important for me to take responsibility for my own learning for at least two reasons. Firstly, there is no sign of anbody else who is likely to do it for me and secondly I wouldn't find it at all easy to accept somebody else taking responsibility for my own direction unless I had an enormous amount of trust and confidence in their ability to do so, which means that they would have to know me very well over a long period of time. And so I attempt to make my own way, grasping at any opportunity which either intrigues me or else appears as if it may lead on to other things. I must admit to feeling a little disappointed and somewhat let down to doscover that nobody is really going to help me when it comes to working out what is the best path for me, but that's the way it is and I've grown to accept it. At least if it all goes wrong then I have nobody to blame but myself, and in those circumstances I am willing to take the risk.

Module 1

The first module for year two 2 was entitled "Reflection in the work setting 2" and I needed to adapt the suggested Independent Learning Plan in order to cater for my own workplace situation and my negotiated degree suffix (Information and Communication Technology)

I set myself the task of attempting my first proper literature review straight away, knowing that this was an important skill requirement for graduation, and I committed myself to continue using FURL, an online research and bookmarking tool. There is an issue with FURL not being able to present a list of literatue in the full Harvard format, but I decided that the benefits to my learning from using this tool outweigh any possible remonstrations at assessment time.

"Revisit the links and literature review submitted for Report 5 last year, where some of these topics were discussed, and begin from there. Include the sites I have Furled since then, particularly looking at opposing theories and contradictions. Begin to draw some conclusions. Share findings in the online community."

from ILP 2-1

The major piece of literature which inspired my work for year 2 module 1 was a 20 year old book about the use of an ICT in schools called LOGO, based on constructivist teaching methodology. I was taken with the ideas but struggled to relate them to the way in which the use of ICT in schools has developed in the last two decades, so I took the initiative to use the Internet to find out what I could about the author, which resulted positively in the discovery of a living professor at an overseas university who was actually willing to reply to my email on the subject.

I had written ( as quoted in report 7 )

"The tragedy is that Goodyear, writing in 1984, was optimistic about the development of the use of computers in classrooms thinking the main limitation was the speed and memory size of the technology at the time. Now we have computers which are thousands of times bigger and faster than he imagined, but they are mostly being used for much less constructive purposes."

before hitting upon the idea of writing to the author. It would have been more comfortable to leave the thought as my own conjecture, but by contacting the author as I did, I took full responsility for the possibility that he may not agree with me at all, which to some extent, he didn't....

"Dear Andy
I'm not sure the para you've included below - "The tragedy is..." -
rings true, either in terms of how I feel now or how I think I felt then."

Experts and families

Part of the pedagogical philosophy at Ultraversity is against the idea of teachers
as experts, which is probably just as well. So when we do need an
expert, we have to go out and find our own. I managed to engage in email conversation
with a Professor in Sydney for one assignment, and in another I made use of
the services of a local entrepreneur ( ILM1 - business planning ). For the Action Enquiry Mdule it was
my own family who came up with the goods. One of the recompenses for being
a single parent is that you try to teach your children everything you know and
then in no time at all they are teaching it all back to you again I would have
really struggled with the wiki hosting and installation without the experience
and technical support from Frankie, and then
another time I had the attention of Evan during an insightful online chat, where it turned out
he had recently accumulated some experience and wisdom about the social
side of wiki community building, which nicely complemented the technical knowledge
of the other one. What Evan is saying, in a nutshell, is the antithesis to the
build it and they will come argument, slightly changed to organise
it, and they will join in. I had failed to spot that tendency from myself
in the current circumstances, despite having been on the receiving end of the
idea that you can build a community by first imposing a tightly bound and pre-conceived
structure all over it and then letting in the crowds and expecting them to populate
it. So definitely a critical incident for me there.

Take a look at this ant house for example:

The ants have made their own passageways, rooms and connections through the blue jelly.

Now imagine if you suddenly took the Jelly away and replaced it with a set of opaque steel tubes, organised in a way which you have already decided will make the most logical anthouse. How do you think the ants will feel about that?

Theory and practice

In the literature review for "Reflection in the work setting 2", (section on learning styles) I included a sub-section entitled "critique" but this was a critique of the generality of literature supporting learning styles theory rather than a full blow by blow analysis of one particular piece of literature. I managed to find some literature which supported a sceptical position (Atherton, 2002) but then decided that I couldn't embrace his conclusions after relating to my own experience in the classroom thus: "but it is also clear that something is not right when a teacher spends a long time using only one mode of delivery ( e.g. talking - auditory learning ) and then gets frustrated at not being able to command 100% continuous attention from all of the learners."

In the section looking at the theory of "intuitive practice" I manage to relate the educational theory to my own practice as a musician:

"As a musician I am aware of the role of intuitive performance, both individually and within groups - especially in improvisational music and composition. But I do feel that the only way to get to the level of being able to play intuitively, is by first acquiring the necessary manual dexterity and mental agility through lots of conscious and somewhat repetitive practice. Reading books written by maestro musicians about their intuitive practice will not improve my ability to transpose an accompaniment on the fly. By transferring this understand to the field of teaching, I can save myself time searching for literature on the secret of intuitive practise in teaching, since if it exists, it is unlikely to provide any short cuts to my own ability to practise intuitively"

So not only am I relating theory to practice for the purpose of better understanding the theory, but also taking that improved understanding and put it to practical use to save myself time and effort. The relationship between theory and practice should be a dialectically intertwined one, with each building upon the other, in rather the same way as the relationship between technology and science. As new technologies are developed, such as the invention of the manufacture of glass for example, so it becomes possible to experiment with prisms and lenses leading to a better understanding of the nature of light, and perhaps by putting two lenses together in a tube to make a telescope, to a more accurate or even revolutionary change in the understanding of the solar system. The improved science then feeds back into practical uses such as better navigation tools opening up the prospect of distant overseas exploration which might bring together inventions ideas and technologies from previously seperately developed pools of expertise.

Another example of relating theories to practice could be cited from the playscript submitted for report 10 where I contrasted the theory of organisational learning from Peter Senge against an older class-based analysis provided by Marx and Engels, and then explore the relevence of each to the situation currently facing state primary schools. By showing that a school is not one comprised of one homogenous community, but is made up of strsta of people with different levels of material interest and commitment a broad roadmap for likely future developments is sketched out which will stand me in good stead as some of the events unfold, rather than being taken by surprise or having wool pulled over the eyes in the guise of "we're all in the same boat" but only until the money runs out and then the limited number of places in the lifeboats are strictly allocated according to rank.

The main thrust of what I've been trying to understand better this year has been the relationship between software and communities, with the Wiki and COP forming a sizable chunk of my studies, and from an academic point of view it may be considered a weakness that I have chosen to specialise in a topic about which I am not able to find a great deal of existing authoritative literature, but these are issues which have a compelling practical use and I'm comfortable with the idea of helping to pioneer in a relatively new field. It's possible that I have missed a trick and should have been able to cross reference literature from other fields where there is some kind of parallel, and if that is the case then I acknowledge the fact that I would need help with this, ( or even help with knowing where to seek such help in more of a connectivist sort of way). The meta-communities which I identified for participation don't seem to be the most seminal when it comes to theory, I could have learned more by hanging out in alt.usenet.config or somesuch. But where I have been able to grasp a new theory such as when Evan explained the reason why stub pages are bad, and I changed my plan to abandon the 'seeding the wiki" idea in favour of a more community based developmen thus putting new theoretical understanding into immediate practice in a way which falls into the excellent level.

Discussion of strengths and weaknesses

As preparation for ILM1 I understook a SWOT analysis of a proposed business plan, which included some analysis of personal strengths and weaknesses, since it would be myself would be the mainstay of the business.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats

S, W - INTERNAL
O, T - External - we have no control

Strengths

Location - gives access to thousands of schools, many LEAs , inner city regeneration areas with funding opportunities
Background and Experience IT and education, music and arts - cyber cafe project, websites
Participation in Ultraversity revolutionary online degree course http://www.ultraversity.net/
Personal Finance - low housing costs/ business premises
Business Finance - low equipment costs, premises

Weaknesses

perceived weaknesses

not being a qualified teacher
age and dynamism

actual weaknesses

personal
face to face communications skills, and particularly telephones energy levels
tendency to procrastinate and not get things done.
The constraints on my time caused by trying to synergise a full time job, a full time degree and preparing a business startup.
Preferred target group is children who already have good capability at ICT and can write.
Difficulty in quantifying improvements in attainment resulting from project.
Short track record of achievement with children, no good project outcomes to point to yet

Opportunities

IT Specific funding in schools, lack of abilities to make good use of it Growing media awareness of blogs
Immigration to the area contributes to demand for ESOL and literacy skills and for international communication ( blogs have no national boundaries ) People can keep in touch with home news and culture through subscribing to blogs from/about home.
Busy Lives and social Isolation make internet communication attractive, better than watching soaps as a substitute for a real local community.
National Government policies are strongly pushing the use of IT in education.
National Government policies are aimed at promoting the role of Teaching Assistants in education, reducing the reliance on higher paid teachers.

Threats

Perceived problems with child safety, media stories
Genuine problems with inappropriate use , age restrictions, password protected environments, teacher control.
Pace of Technological Change could wipe out my leading edge in a short time.
Once teachers think they already know about this they may not demand my services
LondonGridForLearning - LEAS have invested in bespoke digitalbrain software and may see blogs as unnecessarily undermining this. To some extent this is true, the emerging open technology is subversive to existing power structures.
There are lots of different kinds of creative people competing for funds to deliver school based projects
People often don't appreciate the benefits of the blogging phenomenon until they have some experience with it.
The word "blog" doesn't sound very impressive to the uninitiated. This will get worse when I move on to talk about Wikis

After completing the course I did another evaluation which further analysed strengths and weaknesses, thus demonstarting that I view some personal qualities as fixed, about which there is only so much and can do - whereas others are variable and can be both changed and reviewed.

Evaluation

Since then I have learned things which update the situation.
Strengths
The blogging phenomenon is going from strength to strength as I predicted, and the possibility that it is just a flash in the pan which will all be over in two years can be safely ruled out. The number of people who don;t know what 'blog' means is still a large majority and the take-up growth period is likely to be measured in terms of 3-5 years at least rather than one or two. Podcasting, Videoblogging, mobile blogging and more are all creeping over the horizon now and it doesn't seem possible that we can be forced back to the days of the read-only web.
Weaknesses
At present I don't have enough capacity and commitment to this idea in order to get the first pilot project off the ground. So in reality, it is unlikely that I will make the shift from full time employment to full time freelance until after July 2006 when the ultraversity degree course ends. By this time it will be necessary to re-evaluate the ideas and opportunities available.
Opportunities
The evening sessions at the Cyber Centre have restarted, with a possibility of an extra day. Newham issues forum is being inaugurated soon, and I have contacts with people involved in initiating the project, which will need my skills.
Threats
Having attended an inset day for improving science teaching at school I was impressed by the huge amount of energy and preparation which went into one morning's work by the presenter. This made me rethink the viability of basing a business ultimately on visiting schools to deliver presentations to teachers. There may be better ways to earn a living.
evaluation of the cashflow spreadsheet

The exercise of placing realistic costs and expectations into a spreadsheet shocked everybody on the course when they realised how quickly debts can mount up in the first year of running a business while waiting for payments to begin to come in. Using the figures I had calculated for fixed and variable expenses I needed to spend £32,000 but could only expect an income of around £22,000 in the first year. This leaves a deficit of 10,000 which could be made up in the second year but the automated calculations from formulae in the spreadsheet reveal that the deficit could be temporarily as high as £18500 by month 8, and if this isn't foreseen it can cause a new business to fail for instance if an overdraft limit of £15,000 is set and the bank then makes a call on whatever is put up for security.

The Openoffice.org software was more than adequate for the task and although the formula function works slightly differently to Appleworks Spreadsheet and ThinkFreeOffice calc it didn't take long to discover and deploy reasonably efficient techniques which got the job done.

evaluation of the overall process
From the time of selecting ideas, through negotiating the ILM to actually doing it something seemed to get lost in the process. The period of many weeks between planning and implementation saw situational changes which would have been represented in the planning if it had been done later, and yet for some reason I felt obliged to stick to it rather than make changes. Planning is supposed to help make things happen but it can also have the effect of freezing time, limiting flexibility. I think this is something I need to work on.

 

Self Assessment

Again with the ILM1 module, I showed excellent responsibility for my own learning by undertaking an unplanned self-assessment of the finished product, judging it against the formal assessment criteria, before handing it in. I then discussed and validated the self assessment with my peer-review partners, which demonstrates an excellent use of that part of the online community. I had the confidence to do this partly because I had previously identified self-assessment as one of my own strengths, and the eventual Learning Facilitator assessment confirmed this to be so by agreeing quite closely with my own judgment.

Peer Review as a strength

One of my strengths which I have identified recently is an ability to help others by providing critical analysis and support. The evidence for this is sometimes acknowledged in other students reports, although very few of these are available online and so are difficult to quote from. Denise Binks is one of the tiny portion of students who , like myself, publish all of their work online and she recently wrote to ask me

"Hi Andy - I am writing to ask you if I could quote you as part of my evidence, you responded to my ILM Contract on Espresso with some excellent "critical" comments. - Denise"

Another example is from the ICT Community where Sarah Hacket posted a link to a website she had created and asked for comments. My critique is supplied as an appendix to this report, and I would draw attention to the final paragraph "I've tried not to make this review a list of criticisms, it really is intended to be constructive so I hope it reads as such and helps with the project." which illustrates my understanding based on personal experience that in a plain text conversation, it's very difficult tell to anticipate how remarks will be interpreted and so an explicit declaration of motivation can often help. In the event, the critique was well received and resulted in an improved version of the site as Sarah wrote: "As a result of your suggestions I already feel my site is much improved and will try to enact other suggestions at a later date."

Appropriate techniques to communicate

The only definition of appropriate which I can conceive of would have to measure the effectiveness of the chosen technique for communicating ideas given the content and the context of the message.

Asynchronous many-to-many

This remains the most efficient way of communicating and sharing knowledge within groups of people and I have spent quite a bit of time and effort this year participating, modelling and advocating the medium within Ultraversity. The ICT community which I adminster, is starting to prove useful as means mainly for people who are concerned with ICT teaching in schools to compare notes on technical matters and I have used this myself to glean advice and opinion on the use of think.com which I have now introduced in my work practice.

Synchronous private chat

I've used synchronous chat where somebody wants help to run through a series of technical tasks. Here's an example which also contains some reflection on the process of remote synchronous help.

Emmie Trower[11:14:48 pm]: One thing I can't get my head round is cropping! Sometimes I want to cut a bit of a photo out, discard the remainder and blow up the image...I just can't get it right!
Andy Roberts[11:15:07 pm]: what goes wrong?
Emmie Trower[11:16:31 pm]: Well, I select the bit I want to keep and click cut but it disappears and leaves the bits I don't want! So now I cut the bits I don't want and leave the image behind...the problem is that I can't blow it up...it has a white thick border!
Andy Roberts[11:17:40 pm]: OK, cut is for copying that selection. The option you need is called "crop" or sometimes "trim"
Emmie Trower[11:18:20 pm]: So, I have the picture in front of me...do I click the crop tool first?
Andy Roberts[11:19:12 pm]: maybe you click the crop tool first, maybe after making the selection. depends on the software, so just try it
Andy Roberts[11:20:00 pm]: often you use the crop tool to make the selection, then just double click
Emmie Trower[11:20:15 pm]: I've tried clicking the crop tool first, that gives me a sort of broken-lined box which I can use to surround my chosen image. But when I click the tool again...it doesn't do anything.
Emmie Trower[11:20:41 pm]: I haven't tried double-clicking...I'll give that a try.
Andy Roberts[11:20:42 pm]: try the double click inside the selection
Emmie Trower[11:21:32 pm]: This is what I hate the most...if someone is beside me telling me what to do...I only need telling once! I need my own personal tutor!
Andy Roberts[11:22:37 pm]: but if someone were beside you, they would quite likely grab the mouse and take over.
Emmie Trower[11:23:04 pm]: I'm not very technology minded...it's also difficult when the person telling you doesn't have the same software - do you find that? I wouldn't let them grab my mouse!!!
Andy Roberts[11:23:27 pm]: They might not be able to stand watching then
Emmie Trower[11:23:45 pm]: Out IT person is like that...I always have to ask him to slow down and let me follow his instructions...when you can pin him down to help that is!
Andy Roberts[11:23:54 pm]: have you done a crop yet?
Emmie Trower[11:24:11 pm]: No...I still have my report open...I'll have a go...
Emmie Trower[11:26:45 pm]: I've tried it...nothing happened...I clicked crop, boxed the image and double-clicked...it's still boxed but nothing happened...
Emmie Trower[11:27:12 pm]: I'm using Photostudio 5...
Andy Roberts[11:27:28 pm]: maybe it's in a drop down menu such as EDIT / Crop
Andy Roberts[11:27:45 pm]: it'll be there somewhere
Emmie Trower[11:28:04 pm]: I'm looking for clues...
Andy Roberts[11:28:26 pm]: you only selected part of the image, right
Emmie Trower[11:29:34 pm]: Yep...the middle of a photograph...I've just noticed something...if I hover over the selected image with the mouse (inside the boxed area) a little box appears where the mouse cursor should be - it has a cross inside it.
Andy Roberts[11:30:10 pm]: should be able to crop
Emmie Trower[11:30:57 pm]: Sussed!!! I had to go back to the crop tool and click it again...thanks Andy!!!
Andy Roberts[11:31:05 pm]: aha
Andy Roberts[11:31:09 pm]: well done
Emmie Trower[11:31:23 pm]: I'm going to write it down in case I forget it again!
Andy Roberts[11:31:59 pm]: if you do it a few times, it should become intuitive
Emmie Trower[11:33:16 pm]: It makes such a difference when someone can talk you through things!

Coursework website

The approach I have taken with all of my Ultraversity coursework is to publish everything on my own website, but this then has an effect on both myself and others. By making all of my work, feedback and results public, I can give continuous considered help to anybody who wishes to avail themsleves of teh opportunity to see what one person's work looks like - to evaluate for themselves what works well and what doesn't work so well, and to see what kind of marks may be expected through submitting work of this type and standard.

Language.

Language is a fundamental communication tool which when used for its own sake can become an art form, but generally needs to be clear, concise and effective. Understanding this, I strive ( not always sucessfully ) to avoid using language which is pretentious, exclusive, long winded or ambiguous. To fully understand all the latest ideas and theories concerning for example, Rocket Science would require a working knowledge of the specialist vocabulary of rocketry, but when we are merely dealing with half-developed and largely unsubstantiated ideas about education, new technology and knowledge acquisition then I feel it's essential to remain grounded in an everyday vocabularly in order to avoid the danger of mystifying large sections of the potential audience.

How well have I negotiated my own path and outcomes

It's a bit similar to section one now isn't it? Oh well, carry on....

Towards the end of year one I found it necessary to redefine my work context in order to provide scope to include activities which relate not so much to my present main employment, but to future aspirations and interests. I therefore availed myself of the two opportunities for independent module design and based them around areas which are voluntary interests at present, but I aim to develop into a fulltime freelance occupation in the near future. Despite the initial promise, the main thrust of the Ultraversity Degree seems to be aimed at people who wish to become schoolteachers and that fits many of the people enrolled on the course, but not myself. I therefore needed to adapt other modules as well, and all of this in addition to the necessary adaptations required to keep a strong focus on ICT in accordance with my negotiated degree title suffix.. This is how I managed it:

In 43things I had written "My internet connection gets cut off soon, and frankly I’m not that bothered. If I haven’t finished the last ultraversity module by then I can upload it from work. Who needs broadband in the summer holidays?" and at the beginning of this report I said "I am attempting to view this situation as an interesting challenge."

In the event, I soon discovered that working without an internet connection is much, much harder than I'd anticipated to the extent that there were times when I doubted whether it would be possible to write a passable report. In theory I should have been OK with the offline copies of my website and I even managed to bring home a text dump of the blog but that wasn't accesible in the same way. I missed the critical support of my peer review partners, I missed the vital web services which have ensconced themseleves into my practise and I missed the sense of time and development which comes from experiencing the ever changing online landscape. I'm stil slightly shocked at how much I had underestimated this, but maybe it takes more than ten days to adapt.

Assessment of the design of this module

Attention to detail and workmanship: poor

Overall structure, analysis and design: barely acceptable

Consideration of others: poor

Targets: It's all very well being proud of providing a totally content-free degree course but that shouldn't be used as an excuse to try and conjure an entire module out of a thinly disguised and poorly adapted copy of the previous year's equivalent.

Overall mark : 41% ( Please note that this is a provisional mark and is subject to review at any time dring the next 12 months, or possibly longer.)

APPENDIX

Quote from my post to ICT Community doing a website critique for Sarah Hackett.

Hi Sarah,
I can give you a critique of the website if you like, but reviewing the authoring tool is another story.
Much of this will be coloured by my own preconceptions of how I expect a website to work.. The first impression is a good one, made by the tiled background picture of violins and the large headings against plain white. This makes it nice and clear that it's a music website, and a personal page.
There are no obviously clickable links or buttons on the immediately viewable first page, so the first thing I did was to start scrolling down. Neither of the underlined headings "contents" and "feedback" were hyperlinks so I wondered if the whole thing was just a single page with not very much content. If I were a casual visitor I may have given up and left at that point.
Then by 'mousing around' I discovered some links where I wouldn't normally expect them, amongst the text but without the conventional underlined blue letters. Some of the links have a grey background and some green, which looks strange, but in the end I managed to work out that the green ones are external links and the grey internal. This seems to me a bit like an unnecessary guessing game which gets in the way of presenting the useful content.
At the bottom of the page in quite small type is the vital navigation - home : forward : back
These enabled me to page through the site without feeling I'd missed most of it but I felt they would work better positioned near the top in the same place on every page. Once I'd moved on, I kind of lost track of the logical structure of the contents. Also, on each new page the content doesn't start until about 2/3rds of the way down the page so you have to start scrolling very soon to read the new stuff. Then I discovered my theory about the grey and green text backgrounds didn't hold up consistently.
The Feeback section invited me to Leave a note via the school office or directly in my pigeon hole in the music department. which mixes up the offline and online worlds. Perhaps there could be an email address or better still a guestbook or blog to make the site more interactive.
In short, there are no disasters here at all, no investment wasted, because I felt that just a few quite simple changes to the layout and navigation could make the readers' experience much less confusing and do better service to the well written and carefully researched content.
I've tried not to make this review a list of criticisms, it really is intended to be constructive so I hope it reads as such and helps with the project.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Salena Watford, Linda Hartley and Eve Thirkle for some last-minute peer advice.