Monday 15th October

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

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

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

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

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

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

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