Core Activity 9.1 Desktop Research into Blogs

In this activity, I studied several papers, visited Warwick University's Website and Blog listings, reviewed a number of Blog accounts on Blogger.com, and considered the Zoe Corbyn Times HE article. Several educational uses of blogging are:

Student
1.Reflection:
Individual maintenance of a blog to enhance reflective thinking. Students at universities like Warwick and the Open Univerisity are encouraged to keep a blog. These can be used to encourage reflective thinking, and to develop skills of self expression and articulation. "A blog offers interaction with reflective comments and also the ability to interlink to related ideas." (Duffy et al, 2006)

2.Organisation of Learning:

Some students find that the structure of blogs provides them with helpful functionality to organise their ideas. Brady (2005   ) reports "For some bloggers their blog is a way of keeping notes and useful URLs in an organised way." These functions are supported by the capability of tagging of blogs, as well as being able to hyperlink to other web based documents and blogs.

Issues:
In both of the above cases there are a number of potential pitfalls;

• the public nature of the blog raises issues of confidentiality and privacy
• learners may be reluctant/nervous to publish their thoughts
• the learner must be able to cope with the technology/software
• the learner must develop skills of self expression and articulation

Group
3. Collect/Give Feedback:
Where blogging is added as part of the course structure, as it is in the OU, students can be encouraged to comment on each others' work and to provide feedback. This enables them to learn critical review skills, and also to experience the use of peer review.

Issues:
However, the same learner reluctance that was mentioned in 1 and 2 above may well come into play. The use of blogs as part of a course requires an understanding on the teacher's part of the underlying pedagogical needs of the case. Duffy et al (2006) explain "Which tools are used by learners and teachers, and whether such tools will be used at all, will always depend on the specific pedagogical needs of a teaching situation."

Teacher
4. Additional Resources

Some teachers use their blog to post additional information and references that emerge as being of interest from class or online discussions. In blogs such as Peter Smith's Logic Matters blog http://www.logicmatters.net/, lecturers share their latest research and engage in discussions with readers. As well as providing a forum for academic expression, this application of blogging enables teachers to model good practice in blogging to their students.

Issues:
One potential issue with this use of blogs is that a teacher may be concerned about falling foul of the politics of their academic institution, by expressing ideas that are judged inappropriate
Other academics are anxious that original research will be plagiarised by others.
In order to be willing to engage in this practice, academics require technology skills

5. Supervision
In courses in which students use blogs to record their learning, teachers are in a position to conduct formative assessment of students' work. I have myself experienced the benefit of timely and focused tutor comments on my published work, enabling much swifter lessons to be learned.

Issues:
Students who sense that their work is being checked may be more reluctant to express opinions

And in conclusion.....

The explosion in the use of blogs in every aspect of life (personal, corporate, political, journalistic etc) makes their use in education increasingly compelling. "It could be argued that it is the connective and contributive attributes of blogging that has caused it to spread so virally throughout the web" (Brady, 2005) The speed of their take up seems to be turning them increasingly into an everyday tool of reflection, and as educators, we are likely to miss a trick if we do not wrestle with the incorporation of blogging into our pedagogy.

Brady, M. (2005) 'Blogging: Personal participation in public knowledge-building on the web.' In 'Participating in the knowledge society: Researchers beyond the university walls'. R. Finnegan. London, Palgrave Macmillan.

Duffy, Peter D. and Bruns, Axel (2006) The Use of Blogs, Wikis and RSS in Education: A Conversation of Possibilities. In: Online Learning and Teaching Conference 2006, 26 Sep. 2006, Brisbane.

Farmer,J. and Bartlett-Bragg, A. (2005) Blogs at anywhere: High fidelity online communication, ASCILITE, www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/brisbane05/blogs/proceedings/22_Farmer.pdf (accessed 10th January 2010)

Times Higher Education - By the blog: academics tread carefully

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=403827 Zoe Zoe Corbyn, 9 October 2008, Accessed 7th January 2010.

H808 Core Activity 8.1 Learning about Technology

Becoming familiar with technology and its potential always feels rather lumpy when the application is new. So in this exercise, the awkwardness was not so much around the initial creation of material (an audio file and a video file), but in conversion of the files into a format that makes it acceptable for uploading to the internet.

In the case of the audio file the OU recommended Wave pad sound editor provided a cleaning up function, and the Switch sound file gives a number of different audio file options. The file was then suitable for uploading to my own website for broadcasting.

The video was more problematic as the original .mov file was very large, and needed to be converted into a web friendly size and format. The conversion was done on the Mac software, and could then be exported in a couple of m4 file options. It was also possible to take the Mac exported file and upload to You Tube.

I'm sure the next time around, it will be a lot easier, and it certainly makes me keen to incorporate some multi media files on our website. It also encourages me to consider creating a number of podcast files that can be used on our Distance Learning programme, leaving the tutorial sessions for discussions, rather than presentations.

Core Activity 7.3 Approaches to assessment in my setting

The background research on this subject highlighted a number of aspects of assessment that I want to incorporate in my practice.

 

In the PLOT webspace, they refer to a LAMP of learning model which has seven stages. from bottom to top, the stages are; use, connect, internalise, synthesis, apply and use. Progression through these stages leads to Deep Learning, and puts students in a position to interpret and adapt their learning to suit their own situation. Learning activities are designed to prompt learning through these various stages.

 

This progression is essential in my situation, where consultants sign up for training so that they can incorporate our new organisation model into their existing practice. The PLOT website offers a series of structured assessment and personal planning tools to underpin this approach.

 

Burgess has an excellent structure for creating personal development plans around identified areas of weakness.

1 Learning Objective

2 How will you work towards this

3 How will you know about your progress

4 Progress in reaching objective

5 Evidence

6 What got in the way

7 Further work needed

 

Step 5 requires evidence of progress, which enables the learner to create revised learning plans, taking account of step 6 (what got in the way).

 

In my experience in business, tangible evidence is often absent from the assessment process of an individual's performance. Even in peer assessed situations gut-feel scoring is much more typical and tends to lack objectivity. A client of mine has recently introduced a succession planning process in her company which attempts to overcome this assessment weakness. The leadership competences that have been identified for the future have a spectrum of descriptions which are assigned to be low, medium or high performance indicators. Tangible evidence of performance against the competency spectrum is required in the assessment process with the rating being given after consideration of this evidence. Human Resource staff have been trained to use a positive questioning process with managers who are doing the assessing to ensure the robustness of this evidence.

 

'So what' for my learning disciplines?

1. 
   
   Establishing meaningful criteria against which to assess progress and make action plans is essential. These can be compared against the LAMP model. As I assemble my H808 e-portfolio, I will consider the extent to which the goals I have set myself will provide me with the right framework and revise as appropriate. 
2. 
   
   The PDP structure that Burgess recommends also looks very valuable.
3. 
   
   Incorporating peer review of my progress, drawing on feedback from colleagues is a genuine option for me. I hope that this review process may also serve to educate and inform my colleagues about the potential of new approaches to learning.

 

References:

Burgess, H (n.d.) Self and Peer Assessment (online), The Higher Education Academy: Social Work and Social Policy (SWAP). Available from: http://sorubank.ege.edu.tr/~bouo/DLUE/Chapter-08/Chapter-8-makaleler/Assessment%202_%20Self%20and%20peer%20assessment.htm (accessed 19 August 2009). Professional Learning Online Tool (n.d.) Demo (online). Available from: http://www.plotpd.com/Demonstration/Demonstration.htm (accessed 20 December 2009).

 

E-Learning Design - Reflections

The work on H808 TMA 2 made me go back over some of my H802/H804 reading and has reminded me - gulp - of the shift in teaching focus that is offered by the online medium. Prensky and Schank are strong advocates of a learner centric approach to education.

Although in the back of my mind, I was already aware of this, I now realise that the Distance Learning programme that I have just recently delivered to 8 consultants has, at its core, a transmission approach to teaching. Our Web Tutorials had at least 50% of the time devoted to making presentations of materials, which, to be frank, may have felt uninspiring to the audience.

In version 2, I am considering converting some of these sessions into podcasts, which students can listen to in their own time. The Tutorials could be devoted to conversations about the implications and practicalities of the information provided in the podcast, and other background reading.

However, a much more learner centric model is provided by the Carnegie Case Study which I chose in Activity 6.1. If I were to follow Elizabeth Barklay's approach, I would define a number of learning outcomes, and then offer students a variety of exercises/activities to achieve this learning. Whilst this would be a major undertaking in the short term, if we could achieve the increased volume of students that were achieved in the study, the effort would be well worth it;-)

My most significant challenge in the new course design will be with my colleagues, who are all professionals who are genuine experts in the transmission mode of teaching. I am not sure how wholeheartedly they will embrace my proposals.

Reflective practice and action?

In the model of situational learning presented by Dealtry (2004) , I find myself involved quite regularly in all four categories of learning.

Situation
		Familiar	Unfamiliar
Learning task	Familiar	A A learning task in an area you know well (low risk)	B A familiar learning task but applying it to a new situation (moderate risk)
	Unfamiliar	C An unfamiliar learning task but in a familiar work situation (moderate risk)	D New learning in a new part of the organisation (high risk)

In my case, Box A represents courses of mine that are popular and well established, which customers request on a regular basis. The learning that takes place on/after these events is driven by feedback from participants, which encourage me to consider making small modifications to the way I facilitate the course. Box B learning takes place when one of these familiar and popular courses is booked by a new client. The preparation needed in this case is to research the new context, including interviewing typical course delegates. This research provides material for reflection, which will be converted into modifications to the way that the course is delivered; content, style, duration, assessment etc. Both Box A and Box B are well established routines in my company. Box C is my company's preferred forum for Product Development. We get feedback from our regular market research that there is a potential demand for a 'new' course. Having conducted our research, we would aim to find an existing client who would be willing to partner us in prototyping the event. This means that the only learning that needs to take place is learning about the impact of the new course. Box D is altogether more risky, and would not be my chosen place of learning. However, in order to make that Box as safe as possible, putting a lot of effort (would that be reflection?) into getting to know the context by researching and interviewing the client's business, invariably gives a new course a better chance of success.

The Clegg et al (2002) model of reflective practice in academics has less obvious application in my practice.

	Action	Reflection
Immediate	A Immediate action that follows workshops, often characterised by an instrumentalist approach to instruction	B Reflection-on-action, most usually by experienced practitioners with relevant and immediate opportunities for reflection
Deferred	C Action following reflection does not happen because there is no immediate opportunity to put anything into practice	D Reflection following action is often prompted by formal assessment processes – this also happens after a period of rumination

Reflection takes place in a number of situations; following an event, to respond to a new client need, to respond to competition in the market place, to create a new dynamic in my own business, as a result of fresh research, reading etc. 

Perhaps because my clients are business people, there is a tendency to value tangible ideas, rather than theoretical ones, and whilst many clients require a report at the end of a course or courses, they would expect a series of action recommendations based on our experience. That seems to me to put these reflections in Clegg et al's Boxes B and D. However, in both cases the reflection would result in action, so the separation of these two activities feels forced in my situation.

One other situtation bears consideration; reflection to stimulate action. In my experience, committing to make a presentation or facilitate a course on an unfamiliar subject is a valuable method of forcing myself (or colleagues) seriously to engage in Deep Learning about a subject, and to integrate it into my existing knowledge base. 

Both of these models (Dealtry, 2004 and Clegg et al, 2002) have reflective journals as a key mechanism through which reflection takes place. In my case, summaries of my learning are made, but rarely purely as a learning journal. Much more typical is that the learning is recorded as part of the report given to a client, or appears when the next proposal for a course of a similar type is written for a new client. This may practice may lack academic rigour, but in my experience, it does inform and support the incorporation of my learning into future projects. This enables me to discover whether my reflections had any validity. However, the weakness of this approach means that the drive towards CPD is left to chance.

In creating my e-portfolio for H808, I hope to experiment with creating new routines around reflection that I can incorporate in my professional career.

References

Clegg, S., Tan, J. and Saeidi, S. (2002) ‘Reflecting or acting? Reflective practice and continuing professional development in higher education’ (online), Reflective Practice, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 131–46. Available from: http://libezproxy.open.ac.uk/login?url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14623940220129924 (accessed 4th December 2009).
Dealtry, R. (2004) ‘Professional practice: the savvy learner’ (online), Journal of Workplace Learning, vol. 16, no. 1/2, pp. 101–109. Available from: http://libezproxy.open.ac.uk/login?url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/13665620410521567 (accessed 3rd December 2009).

My own professional values.

My beliefs:

• When people are able to do work that matters (paid or unpaid) they feel useful members of society and therefore feel good about themselves as human beings
• People doing work that matters make a difference to businesses and organisations enabling them to do well
• As a result, society benefits from the above virtuous circle
• Everyone can improve their personal skills and performance, as long as they are willing to take responsibility for this change
• As a learning professional, my job is not only to help people to learn, but also to help them to see the benefit of learning

My professional values therefore include the following:

1. Maintain and develop my skills as a learning professional in business
2. Take an active interest in the context in which my clients are operating
3. Promote excellence in all of my professional interventions
4. Embrace innovation as a key technique in professional and business development 
5. Provide relevant and useful tools and learning experiences to support clients in their pursuit of excellence
6. Keep up to date with technology so that I can offer enhanced learning experiences for my clients 
7. Contribute to an extended global community through which best pratice and learning can be shared
8. Above all, give great service that clients love;-)

Reflection and Emotion

Since re-joining masters level studies in September, I have been reminded of the turbulence and emotion that accompanies the incorporation of new learning into my own thinking process. The period in which new input is being received, either by reading or through conversations of various kinds feels very stressful. Why would that be so? I suppose my existing 'certainties' have been reached over a significant period of time, and have been re-enforced by experience, which embeds them deeply into my sense of what is true. New information either fits in there, in which case, I have to find a way to make the links, or forces me to reconsider and revise my point of view. In a way, both of these scenarios is uncomfortable, which may account for the emotional reaction.. I think the worst part of the process is the part when the outcome feels uncertain. Just how does this fit? Have I been wrong in the past? Where does the new thought connect?
I am wondering whether my mistake is to keep ploughing on with trying to make the links? My normal way of working is to assume that if I work hard and stay focused, I will find the answer. But Anne Miller describes a mental process (in innovation) which is called hypnagogic creativity.

"It's important not to be always "on", because the creative process needs to alternate periods when you are energetically gathering information or thinking analytically with periods of quieter reflection to incubate ideas and listen to your intuition." (p52)

My recollection of Moon's description of the reflective process had a period in which the new ideas were absorbed. I am beginning to feel that it is important that I develop personal strategies for coping with this emotional period.

One strategy, of course,would simply be to take a break when I reach overflow point and deliberately do something that takes my mind off the subject under consideration.
A second idea is to engage in conversation with others who can add perspective to my thinking. One of two of my work colleagues are especially helpful in this regard, as they are well aware of my existing points of view and can counter them well.
The OU is also a place to see solace, either with tutor group colleagues, or possibly in the public areas of H808?
Maybe there are others?


Miller, A., (2009) How to get your ideas adopted (and change the world), Marshall Cavendish Ltd,. London

H808 E-Portfolio: Web Tutorial 3 Review

In Sessions 1 and 2, we have focused on explaining the background to our organisation model, Future Shape of the winner, and having the students study it and get used to articulating the main features of the model.


In Session 3, we want to move on to have students start the process of integrating FSW into their existing practice. We decided to prompt this thinking by setting some background reading on how the model connects with other well known management theories, and then to explain three case studies which outline the way that we have integrated the model into our practice. These case studies elicited a number of questions, that were at quite a practical level, and indicated to me that students were putting themselves in the position of using the model and having to make sense of its findings. One contacted me after the Web Tutorial with the following comment:

"This is becoming a lot clearer in my mind and am getting a lot of confidence!"

This seems to be an example of someone discovering how to integrate this new knowledge into their existing knowledge bank.


I remain uncomfortable with medium of the webinar platform, and am not convinced that it is the best for presenting data. And whilst the telephone contact enables us to have discussions and answer questions, it is still an imperfect way of judging the audience reactions to the material. 
However, the benefit of the teleconference is that the community of the programme is beginning to strengthen, and students are showing an obligation to each other to contribute. Being honest, the mindset that is probably the most important to shift is that of the tutors, including myself, whose background is almost entirely face to face training. Becoming comfortable with a style of teaching that relies much more on the learner to make sense of the material is difficult, and may not at the outset feel so personally rewarding, but is essential in the Distance Learning arena.


By the end of this first programme, I aim to be able to map the key learning inputs that are essential for the programme, and find ways of delivering that material through a more suitable medium; podcasts, videocasts, quizzes ...etc. And I would want to identify which are the most important subjects for discussion. Setting up activities that engender the right discussions will be the next challenge.


But all in all, we are managing to have the right conversations, and the confidence our students are developing for the material is most heartening.

FSW DL Reflection tool (1)

In an earlier blog posting (Reflecting on Reflection, 2nd October 2009), I described a moment of realisation about my own professional practice. I have tended to assume that allocating time for my students to reflect assumes that they will know how to reflect. My research around the subject of reflection has given me pause for thought on that subject.

I decided this week, to provide some extra scaffolding for reflection on the Web Tutorial. On this session, all students had been asked to prepare a five minute input summarising their learning on a section of the course manual (Practitioner's Guide). Listening to any subject tackled 8 times can be both tedious and challenging; I therefore provided a Reflection Tool for everyone to use if they chose. The tool listed all the names of students, and invited the listener to record their answers under three headings; features benefits that they focused on, powerful images/phrases, ideas to incorporate into your pitch, any questions.

Students have been invited to contribute to a blog discussion following that session, and I will be fascinated to see if there any good evidence of listening and reflection.

H808 E-Portfolio: Web Tutorial 2 Review

The second web tutorial in our series of four took place on 19th October. Students had been assigned pre-work of studying five sections of the Practitioners Guide describing the Future Shape of the Winner organisation model and prepared a five minute input to describe the features that they judge to be unique.

This exercise allowed us to judge their early grasp of the model and also to get a sense of their presentational capabilities, albeit in the limiting arena of a teleconference.

We audio recorded this conference, which provided my colleague and I with the opportunity to review the inputs of students, and make a more considered assessment of progress.

Two had clearly developed an excellent understanding of the model and were able to relate the model to their existing mental models around organisations. Four showed good understanding being able to articulate the model well, and two, both native Spanish speakers were more limited in their grasp.

In one case, this may be due to the student's poor spoken english; this student's presentation showed signs of his questioning whether the model can truly be useful in his practice. In the coming weeks, I must monitor the situation with both students, to decide whether additional learning support is required.

Today's review will support my PDP in two areas; Assessment and Awareness of Students. In carrying the review out with my colleague, I was also improving our collaboration on e-learning.

Memo: Extracts from PDP Goals which are being addressed in this activity
This is the first programme that we have developed in this field. I will work with colleagues, and research best academic practice to establish the criteria against which we will judge the performance of our learners.


I will engage my colleagues in the assessment process, which will give me a benchmark to judge my own assessment competences.

Structure for my H808 E-Portfolio

Structure for H808 E-Portfolio: Madeleine McGrath

H808 is designed to help students to develop their understanding of what it means to be an e-learning professional in a period in which this medium is in its relative infancy. A major element of the module is for students to create an e-portfolio as a record of their learning and development during H808. This document outlines how I intend to organise my e-portfolio artifacts in order to meet that course objective.

Structure for Storing Artifacts

The H808 Course Guide provides us with a Personal and Professional Development Template, and we have also been required (activity 3 part 2) to conduct a Needs Analysis of the areas in which we require development. These two frameworks will guide the structure of the collection of my e-portfolio artifacts.

The tagging structure I will use to label artifacts will be as follows:

Areas of Practice

H808EP Skills

H808EP Reflection

H808EP Critique

H808EP Proactivity

Competencies

H808EP Practice

H808EP Communication

H808EP Technology

H808EP Research

These tags may combine both areas of practice and competencies in the following format (H808EP Skills/Practice).

I plan to use the same tagging structure in 2 e-portfolio repositories. The OU's My Stuff Repository will be used to collect artifacts related to the H808 learning, and Google Apps will be used for artifacts relating to my Work Based learning. This division is to enable me to continue to use an e-portfolio after my OU incumbency, assuming that the experience of using one proves valuable in the long term.

Connecting PDP with H808 Personal and Professional Development Template (PPDT)

My PDP has highlighted 8 meta skill categories (Prefixed below with MS) and 17 individual skills (Prefixed below with S) that will benefit from attention during H808 and beyond. Some of these fall into more than one area of competency.

Here is how they can be plotted against the PPDT areas of competency:

Practice

MS 1a-c. Awareness of students and their learning needs

MS 5a-c Student assessment

S 4a Transform teaching material for the online environment

MS 6a Steps taken to improve my teaching

Communication

MS 2a-c Creating the right online atmosphere

MS 3a Generating 'stickability" (Learner persistence)

S 4d Developing an online community

MS 8a Collaboration with teaching colleagues

Technology

MS 3a Generating 'stickability' (Learner persistence)

MS 4 a-d Ability to use IT appropriately

Research

MS 6a Steps taken to improve my teaching

MS 7 Organisation and record keeping

Each area of competency may have evidence of skills, reflection, critique and/or proactivity development.

Sources of Artifacts

Evidence of my development/performance against the PPDT elements will be drawn from:

• Forum postings from H808
• Selected H808 activities
• Relevant academic research
• Www sources
• Previous H80X ECs and TMAs
• Specially created documents to chronicle relevant aspects of my work based Distance Learning Project
• Audio and other AV records from my work based DL Project

MM Personal Development Plan.rtf

H808 PDP: Madeleine McGrath

	Overview
	I am currently leading a team who are running a 5 week Distance Learning Programme for consultants to train them in the use of my company’s Organisation Development model. Successful consultants will be granted a license to use this product with their own clients. The programme has been developed in the light of my experience of designing and facilitating an online module as part of my H804 studies, and following my occasional use of webinar technology to make presentations to dispersed audiences. I plan to use the experience of running this programme to develop my skills as an e-learning professional. I judge the following skill areas to be the most promising places to make improvements.
	Skills and Competences	Existing competence level		Improvement Actions/Goals
1.	Awareness of Students and their learning needs	Memo: this was an area that was judged lacking in my H804 EC.
1a	Understanding of students’ knowledge base	The current process uncovers the students knowledge base from student cvs and registration documents		Experiment with ways systematically to find out the existing levels of knowledge of my learners in future programmes.
1b	Knowledge of students and their backgrounds	The registration process asks questions about the professional, academic and personal backgrounds of learners		The existing process will be reviewed, and more searching questions included in future if necessary.
1c	Awareness of individual and special needs	This information is currently derived from the current registration process.		Identify specific learning needs based on findings from 1a and 1b, and the experience of the first programme. Introduce a more searching inquiry process if necessary.
2	Creating the right online atmosphere
2a	Use of voice and gesture	We currently have both voice and online communication with learners.		Monitor the online/telephone responses of learners to my and my colleagues inputs.
2b	Ability to include all students in discussion	The telephone conference format makes it difficult to ensure everyone can participate. A number of strategies to support this have been introduced on this programme. The success of these strategies will be reviewed at the end of the programme.		Monitor participation of learners in telephone and online conferences, and investigate any disappointing participation levels. Identify strategies to encourage optimum participation in the learner’s circumstances.
2c	Ability to create a suitable atmosphere in groups	The various learning arenas (blogsite, webinar, Linkedin) I have chosen give my colleagues and I a variety of ways of judging whether we have been able to generate a group dynamic.		I will monitor participation in group sessions/arenas, to decide on any improvements for future events. The long term test of success in this factor will be whether learners choose to remain active members of our online community after the end of the programme.
3	Generating stickability	Memo: this was an aspect of my H804 project that I found most disappointing.
3a	Ability to engage students	Persistence levels of learners have been variable in past programmes of mine – from not even participating though to erratic, unreliable participation up to enthusiastic and energetic participation. Participation is important to this programme, as it gives us visibility of learners who will be representing our products in the market place and assists in our assessment of their capabilities.		Though observing any differences in participation levels of learners, identify the factors that do/will motivate learners to participate in our programme, and incorporate as many as possible into future programmes.
4	Ability to use IT appropriately
4a	Understanding of online course design: how to write online teaching material, how to design online activities, how to transform teaching or training material for the online environment.	Our current programme has a blog, an audio webinar platform, participant guide book and a mentored assignment as its learning methodology.		In order to turn this programme into one that can deliver high quality training to larger numbers of geographically dispersed students, it is vital that our basic programme includes a much greater proportion of asynchronous activities. The experience of the first programme will provide insights into the activities and discussions that are essential in our learning process. This learning can be incorporated into the next design of the programme. The fact that we have chosen technologies for the first programme which give us visibility of the process learners are going through will provide valuable insights into the actual learning process that is taking place.
4b	Experience of audio and visual facilities of the web; for example, Netmeeting, Skype, digital photos, webcasting, podcasting	The current programme uses webcasting (which is called webinar in my field).		In future programmes, I envisage much greater use of podcasts to replace some of the webinar inputs, and will be very interested to experiment with the use of Skype and its video conferencing capabilities.
4c	Understanding of the different text-based communication systems: computer conferencing, bulletin boards, listserves etc	The current programme uses a webinar platform for synchronous communication and a blogsite for asynchronous communication.		It is my aim to migrate the programme gradually to incorporate a greater proportion of asynchronous communication. This will make the programme more time efficient for tutors and learners, and will give us much greater scalability of numbers of learners.
4d	Skill in developing online community: what works and what doesn’t; providing focus, animating online groups, developing collaborative activities	We are using two online community platforms; blogger and linkedin..		Monitoring the community dynamics of the first programme will give us data to assess our community building capabilities and identify areas for improvement. The ultimate test of this competence will be the extent to which learners stay active in this learning community after the programme has finished.
5	Student Assessment
5a	Ability to mark to the department’s standards	No previous experience	This is the first programme that we have developed in this field. I will work with colleagues, and research best academic practice to establish the criteria against which we will judge the performance of our learners.
5b	Consistency and reliability in marking standards	No previous experience.	I will engage my colleagues in the assessment process, which will give me a benchmark to judge my own assessment competences.
5c	Written feedback on assignments	At present I am not required to provide written feedback to learners. This programme will therefore provide my first experience of this.	The experience of providing feedback for the first time will be a valuable learning experience for me. I shall reflect on that experience and ask for feedback from colleagues to help me to hone my skills in this area.
6a	Steps taken to improve your teaching	This programme was created based on my previous H80X experience and in particular the experience of designing and facilitating three online modules in H804.	The items in this Action/Goals column provide a template against which I will develop my e-learning skills for the future.
7	Organisation and record-keeping	Since this has been a prototype programme, the documents and records have been created using our best instincts and prior experience, which is largely of face to face training.	In the light of our experience, I will analyse the documents and course materials that we have used, and streamline their use and storage.
8	Collaboration with teaching colleagues	On the programme to date, my colleagues have collaborated in supporting the delivery of my course design, although this has largely been rather passive collaboration.	I will involve colleagues in the end of programme review, and encourage them to take part in the design of future programmes. This will improve the quality of future programmes, and will increase their ownership of the programme in the future.

Adapted from Source: H851 Practice Guide 7, Reviewing and Improving your Teaching, The Open University, 1998, p.31. and Technology related skills and competences for e-learning professionals, Robin Mason.

Reflecting on Reflection

Activity 2.4, in which I read several pieces on the subject of reflection in learning has given me pause for thought in my H808 studies.

In H808, we are required to reflect on our own personal development, and it occurs to me that devoting some time to examining my approach to reflection would be a valuable activity that would benefit from the rigour of the H808 framework.

There is no doubt that in my life, I have a bias for action. I am someone who always likes to press for action when a problem or opportunity arises, and I try to create that kind of an environment in all the circles in which I operate.

When applied to my professional life, the kinds of programmes that I am engaged to organise and run by my business clients are invariably attempting to solve 'people' problems, for example situations where managers are failing to show leadership, situations where employees are not providing the right level of customer service or situations where groups are not operating as a team. I have some long held beliefs about not only the kind of reflection that is needed in such situations, but also how to set up learning experiences that make people want to stop and think about their behaviour. However, the literature I have read recently on reflection has made me question whether my tacit assumptions are overdue a spring clean! In reading the literature, it struck me that my practicing theory may be missing an important element, namely I am assuming that when the period of reflection is set up that my learners will know how to reflect. But there may be more asssumptions that require challenging.

So, my latest thinking on my H808 e-portfolio study is that I reflect on my professional practice in providing learners with the support they need for reflection. This, in turn, may require me to revise other aspects of the way I set up and support learning programmes. The H808 Skills Framework looks a good model in which to do this reflection. 

What is quite exciting about this area of study is that it spills over into a voluntary activity in which I am involved. For many years, I have been involved in a help line for people who are feeling suicidal or despairing. Whilst a proportion of these callers have mental conditions which have no hope of cure, a good proportion of callers find themselves in a depairing frame of mind because of combinations of unfortunate circumstances. If I can improve my understanding of how to engender quality reflection in my learners, there may be the chance for me to do a better job of helping these callers make better progress with dealing with some of these challenges.

All in all, outcomes that will improve my professional skills on many levels.

Reflection and Learning Core Activity 2.4

Moon's (2001) paper takes a practical view of reflection and the role it can play in higher education. There are several helpful pointers for H808. And, whilst I am currently engaged in higher education as part of H808, my professional life involves me providing learning experiences for professionals who are in employment, rather than in education. I will therefore be very keenly looking out for lessons that can carry over to my professional practice.

Moon quotes Schon on the subject of Professional Knowledge. His research has demonstrated that espoused theory does not guide professional practice, rather a professional's expertise in practice is based on their reflections of the experience of being a professional. The professional over time develops tacit theories, of which they may be unaware. Making this 'knowing in action' explicit in order to reflect on it critically is seen as an essential trigger to professional development. This may very well be a start point that H808 participants should assume, myself included.

Mezirow (1991) similarly contends that adult judgements are based on assumptions, many of them very deeply held, and that these assumptions are open to question. Reflection on assumptions is therefore vital if the learner is to incorporate new knowledge into their view of the world. He describes reflection as the "intentional assessment of prior learning in order to re-establish its validity or to correct distortions"(p15).

It seems to me that both of these descriptions of the professional mindset demonstrate why we ought to take seriously the development of our reflective capabilities as learning professionals. If we wish to set an example for our learners of good learning practice, we must consider the extent to which we actively look for input that challenges our own view of the world, and that we demonstrate that we can use this input critically to examine our own assumptions. The more experienced we are, the more difficult that may prove to be, especially in the event that we do not have sufficient awareness of our own metacognitive processes.

The cohort on H808 contains a highly experienced group of professionals, who undoubtedly have strong assumptions and opinions, myself included. Since we are all required to use a reflective journal of our personal and professional development, I believe we must be willing to engage in Deep Learning. Moon, quoting Marton, Hounsell and Entwistle (1997), believes that reflection is required if learners are to move into the deeper levels of learning; making meaning, working with meaning and transformative learning.

In my own personal practice, there is an immediate parallel for the application of this learning, as we are running a Distance Learning Programme for a group of experienced professionals: these individuals have signed up to learn our consulting methodology and are considering incorporating it into their own practices. The three higher level learning processes I described above are very relevant for this group, who must be encouraged and supported to engage in deep learning, and hence, reflection. It may be possible for me to use the observation of the levels of reflection I am able to engender in my business students in parallel with our H808 reflections.

Moon recommends a number of methods for capturing reflective activity, including blogs, portfolios, reflecting on work experience, and peer and self assessment. These are all being encouraged on H808, and blogs, work experience and peer assessment will be used on my work project. Moon also recommends reflective exercises for learners who find reflective thinking difficult. These may have a place in my work based programme.

One benefit of a blog for reflection is that it is a medium in which creating the learning journal is very adaptable and correctible. In addition, the fact that the blog can then be viewed and commented on by others provides the chance to get feedback. The opportunity that a blog offers of keeping an ongoing record of reflections also sets the data in a context that enables the tracking learning development over time. Finally, the fact the the blog is published lends weight to its significance; were you just keeping personal private journal, there may be less thought given to its construction.





Mezirow, J. (1991) 'Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning', Jossey Bass, San Francisco.
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/id69_guide_for_busy_academics_no4.doc (accessed 2 July 2008)

My e-portfolio project

As part of my H808 studies, I am required build my own professional development portfolio; an e-portfolio. In this portfolio I must evidence my progress in each of four areas of competency; practice related, communication related, technology related and research related. Each area of competency involves skills, reflection, critique and pro-activity.

At the outset of H808, I was determined to devote my time to subject matter that will be directly relevant to my work life; I am looking for more than knowledge, I want demonstrable improvement in my skills! For this reason, my initial plan for this e-portfolio is that I will focus my reflections on a distance learning project at work, for which I have managed to attract 8 paying delegates. This project is being run between 5th October and 2nd November and the 8 participants live in 5 different countries. This project is a completely new departure for my company, and one that could open up significant new markets for us, not just for this Distance Learning training, but also the additional products and services that delegates may then wish to buy from my company. This is indeed what our company founder, Tom Peters, calls 'Work that Matters'.

I plan to use the portfolio initially, to use Barrett's (2009) distinction, as a workspace rather than a showcase. And having focused largely on formative reflections, my hope is that by the end of the 6 month period, I will be in a position to focus on what she calls prospective reflection, creating new goals for the next iteration of the programme. There may be a role for showcasing my learning, as this may be a piece of work that will have PR or marketing applications for my company.

As an initial piece of work in this portfolio, I will analyse my previous experience of running a distance learning project, working out how I fared on each of the four practice areas.

My next reflection piece will be to describe the decisions we have made about this latest distance learning project, with my rationale for the these decisions. Again, I will use the H808 Professional Development Framework to structure my thinking.

I hope then to be in a position in 6 weeks time to reflect on the actual experience of running this latest course, to critique how it has progressed, and make resolutions for the next iteration of this programme, always assuming I am able to assemble a second group.

Not only does this seem to be an interesting porfolio, it also has very practical applications for me and my business. Win, win, I would say!

Ref: Barrett, HC, (work in progress, last update 23rd April 2009), Balancing the Two Faces of ePortfolios, (online) http://electronicportfolios.org/balance/index.html (Accessed 25th September 2009)
Peters, TJ, (1999), Re-inventing Work, Professional Service Firm 50, Alfred A Knopf Inc, New York. See Chaper 4a.