Reflecting on my experiences of digital transient CPD #sedaconf #seda_nets

For some years now I have engaged in online CPD. My exploration of Twitter opened up a wide range of opportunities to engage in conversations with fellow educators and professionals in a wide variety of roles. 

My interest in social media and how it was being used by businesses was an eye opener. As a result I've engaged in numerous tweetchats with marketing specialists and recognised that this mode of communication opened up so many opportunities for interactive dialogue that went beyond text. The ability to link to other resources or add images, audio or video added a new richness. Being able to filter tweets through a shared hashtag opened up the opportunity to curate collections of tweets. My network grew as I connected with professionals sharing and discussing useful information. However this didn't happen overnight and as I often say a personal learning network is just that - personal. I have connections that add value to my own CPD, but these may not all be of value to everyone else, simply because we have different as well as potentially shared interests.

Over the last two years I have engaged in the weekly #LTHEchat - a weekly chat about topics relating to learning and teaching in higher education. Prior to that tweetchats in the online course Bring your own device for learning brought great value to the learning experience. They work and provide numerous opportunities to co-learn with others. Conferences provide another space to extend the conversations beyond the face to face. Last week I engaged with the SEDA Conference that was using the #sedaconf hashtag as a virtual participant. However what brought it alive was the organised tweetchat within a workshop. Andrew Middleton (@andrewmid) and Sue Moron-Garcia (@DrSueCELT) through Twitter invited people to join what was going to be a live chat the following day. They shared a specific hashtag #seda_nets and tweeted the time the chat would take place. I was thrilled as it fell between my teaching and I was able to block out the hour in my diary. I wasn't able to attend the full conference because of my teaching commitments this year and this gave me an opportunity to be a part of it. 


Reflecting on the experience

As a result of Andrew's post on weaving across the digital physical space and then the invite to myself and Chris Rowell (@Chri5rowell) to respond as digital participants to present our view from the other side of the physical-digital tweetchat - I was prompted to reflect on my experience. 

Chris reflected that his engagement with the workshop chat was purely serendipitous. He was on his way to a hospital appointment via public transport and had via his phone checked in to the SEDA conference hashtag #sedaconf. He picked up on one of Andrew's tweets and caught the additional hashtag linked with the proposed tweetchat. He was then able to reply to each of the questions. He used the retweet with comment option and nested his answer above each of the questions Andrew posted. This is a useful way to do this as it keeps the answer with the question, however you can't include images. 

For me the experience was immersive. I felt a sense of belonging with the group that were at the conference and in this workshop. Those there that also tweeted the answers to the questions (they had been given post-its), also interacted with myself and this led to interesting discussion around the topic shared.  

  
Why transient CPD is important

This short opportunity to engage in CPD through this tweetchat was valuable as

• It provided a space to discuss an interesting topic with people I may not have otherwise been introduced to. 
• Whilst the tweetchat is short-lived, I've been able to make new connections with whom I can continue the conversations if I choose to do so. 
• I didn't have to travel to a venue, and was able to take part in the space I was in at that time.
• The duration of the CPD activity was less than an hour and it fitted into my busy schedule. 
• The experience added value to my working day and I thoroughly enjoyed it.    

Why it can be difficult

Through sharing Andrew's blog post with our comments with my own network it stimulated discussion around personal space. I had shared that my CPD experience had been interrupted when a colleague had come into the office and asked to speak to me. Despite explaining that I wasn't able to at the moment as I was online, the person insisted on trying to tell me what he wished to discuss. 

I think the 'issue' was that it is hard to give the visual cues to demonstrate you are engaged in a CPD activity of this type. Had I been wearing headphones and engaging in a webinar this may have been more apparent. However this was a tweetchat and I was not actually taking to anybody but preparing to answer the question. My computer screen displayed a SlideShare presentation. I had been searching for an image in a prior presentation I had given that would help me to answer the first question. I felt rude saying I couldn't continue the discussion at that moment. Perhaps I should have been more explicit and said I was involved in a tweetchat, but at that time I didn't think this would have helped. 

I felt my space had been invaded at a point where I had given myself an hour to engage in CPD. As I mentioned a short discussion took place about this on Twitter last night. One person mentioned that she no longer took part in lunch time tweet chats, because of interruptions in her shared office space. So is it that we should move to another space to take part in this transient form of CPD or are there ways we can make it clear we are engaged online and prefer not to be disturbed? My office colleague suggested I put on my headset as a means of signalling this. I'd be interested in your thoughts and experiences.  

Happy Birthday #LTHEchat: an invitation to the community

Created by @simonrae 

This week we celebrate the 2nd Birthday of #LTHEchat, the tweetchat about Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. Now into the third academic year, and a programme planned that extends well into 2017 with volunteer guests offering to lead themed chats, it is truly something to celebrate! In 2014 my dear colleague Chrissi Nerantzi and I via a skype call were reflecting on other shared projects and we came up with the idea of running a weekly chat as a pilot for a few months and see what happened. Well as you can see #LTHEchat is still here. What has made this work and become a sustainable model is the community that has grown to be #LTHEchat. The community not only spans the UK but also has participants from Europe, the US and Australia. Some are active participants and others 'listen in'. Every single one of you are valued members of the #LTHEchat community.

The community not only take part in the chat, some have contributed to the organising team. This group of people have worked incredibly hard behind the scene and are what makes the chats happen week on week! There are also four colleagues who who have shown sustained engagement, commitment, insight and open sharing to the LTHEchat community and they have been awarded the #LTHEchat Golden Tweeter Award: Professor Simon Lancaster, Neil Withnell, Simon Rae, Hala Mansour and Chris Jobling.

In December a group from the #LTHEchat community who have contributed to the organising team will be presenting at the 2nd Social Media for Learning in Higher Education Conference 2016 which takes place at Sheffield Hallam University. The paper is called:

‘With a little help from my followers’ – Facilitating the #LTHEChat
The presenters representing the organising team (yes there are more amazing people!) at the conference will be:

Chris Rowell – @Chri5rowell
Regent’s University London

Debbie Baff – @debbaff
Swansea University

Neil Withnell – @neilwithnell
University of Salford

Kate Soper – @KatesSoper
Manchester Metropolitan University

Chris Jobling – @cpjobling
Swansea University

Ian Tindal – @iantindalAnglia Ruskin University

Sue Beckingham – @suebecks
Sheffield Hallam University

Your invitation to contribute

This is where you as members of our #LTHEchat community can help us. We would be very grateful if you could complete this short online survey. Thank you!

SURVEY LINK

Calling all #LTHEchat folk please give us your views by filling in this little 5 minute survey https://t.co/5maiNGBc4j pic.twitter.com/uFbEZ85pHb

— LTHE Tweetchat (@LTHEchat) October 26, 2016

Social Media for Learning in Higher Education Conference 2016

It would also be wonderful to see you at the conference! You can find out more about the event by following @SocMedHE on Twitter and how to register here: https://blogs.shu.ac.uk/socmedhe/  

This paper and the other shot papers, workshops, thunderstorms and poster abstracts can be found here: https://blogs.shu.ac.uk/socmedhe/short-abstracts-2/ 

‘With a little help from my followers’ – Facilitating the #LTHEChat

This short paper will share the evaluation of the #LTHEchat and the impact of this on professional development for the organising teams and the chat participants. The twitter chat has shown there is demand to focus conversations on Teaching and Learning (T&L) in Higher Education (HE). The research will include results from a survey and semi-structured interviews, to identify the impact and value gained by active or silent participation, for the organisers and participants. In addition the chats themselves and the learning analytics of the Storify will be monitored and analysed to evaluate asynchronous engagement with archives of live chats.

The #LTHEchat, created by the community for the community, is a collaborative project on T&L in HE via tweetchats. “A tweetchat is a virtual meeting or gathering on Twitter to discuss a common topic. The chat lasts one hour and has questions to stimulate discussion” (Beckingham 2014). Each week there is a pre-determined topic with guests leading the chat.

Through #LTHEchat an online community of practice has evolved, including educators with a variety of roles. Drawing upon the literature, Wenger, Traynor and De Laat (2011) discuss five cycles of value creation in networks and communities, suggesting value can be:

• Immediate: answering/being answered. The #LTHEchat has created synchronous, Twitter activity. The discussion is right when you want it and, when a link is shared to a blog or article, the depth and breadth of shared knowledge increases. 
• Potential: gaining skills/knowledge/connections which we may call upon in future. The #LTHEchat provides a fertile ground for sharing learning experiences and forms collaborative working relationships. 
• Applied: taking something and applying to practice. Every conversation is applied to the HE context. 
• Realised: reflecting on new implementations. The chats allowed for the sharing of reflective practice in an open forum. 
• Reframing: in light of value gained, how does that impact on our view of success. While this is less easy to measure, the #LTHEchat has impacted on practitioners thinking about T&L. 

Wenger’s (2002) concept of ‘legitimate peripheral participation’ is relevant as the #LTHEchat facilitators ‘bounce’ from the edge to the centre of the community and from live participation to catch-up via the tweets. The #LTHEchat guests join the community in the ‘hotseat’ to develop the conversation which encourages the community to grow (Ultralabs, 2015)

The joining of chats, e.g. #HEAchat and new initiatives such as #HEStudentQ have opened the chats to both staff and students providing new opportunities for informal learning.

This short paper will share some case studies and short vignettes from the research undertaken to highlight how #LTHEchat empowers a community of practice to embrace informal learning and has supported co-learners to take ownership of their continuing professional development. Finally it will provide participants with ideas on how they could develop their tweetchats for informal learning.

References:
Beckingham, S. (2014). Introducing tweetchats using #LTHEchat as an exemplar. http://www.slideshare.net/suebeckingham/introducing-tweet-chats-using-lth-echat-as-an-exemplar Accessed 27th May 2016

Ultralabs (2015) The online communities. https://sites.google.com/site/ultralabprojects/home/talking-heads/communities/presentation Accessed 27th May 2016

Wenger, E., Trayner, B., & de Laat, M. (2011). Promoting and assessing value creation in communities and networks : a conceptual framework. Open Universiteit. http://wenger-trayner.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/11-04-Wenger_Trayner_DeLaat_Value_creation.pdf Accessed 27th May 2016

Wenger, E., Lave, J. Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (2002) Legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice. Eds Julia Clarke and Anne Hanson in Supporting Lifelong Learning, Vol. 1: Perspectives on Learning: Learning and Teaching Vol I. London: Routledge

Citations in CPD for the Career Development Professional

CPD for the Career Development Professional

I received a complementary copy of CPD for the Career Development Professional written by Siobhan Neary and Claire Johnson, in which the authors have cited one of my conference presentations and the Social Media for Learning blog I write. A first for me to be in the acknowledgements, within a chapter and in the index of a book!

Work cited

Social Media for Learning blog
https://socialmediaforlearning.com/

Social Media and CPD? You can't be serious...
https://www.slideshare.net/suebeckingham/social-media-and-cpd-you-cant-be-serious

What can we learn from a pencil?

I came across the essay 'I, Pencil' written by Leonard Read in 1958 via Maria Popova's blog Brain Pickings. There are many lessons to be drawn from this piece as it follows the production of an ordinary pencil. You are invited to consider what may appear as just a simple pencil, but we are reminded that we take this item for granted and in the main, most of us are probably completely unaware of how a pencil is produced and who is involved. 

Leonard Read writes... 

"But, sadly, I am taken for granted by those who use me, as if I were a mere incident and without background. This supercilious attitude relegates me to the level of the commonplace. This is a species of the grievous error in which mankind cannot too long persist without peril. For, the wise G. K. Chesterton observed, 'We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders'.” 

Below is a powerful animation based on this essay. 




Some thoughts that resonated with me as I reflected on this essay were about the value of connectivity and communication and through this opportunities for collaboration and cooperation, and what we can achieve with others. It goes without saying the creativity the written word can produce and of course the images as sketches in a multitude of ways. 

When we work for the mutual benefit of others we can all benefit more. Sharing the outcomes so others can learn can ad further value. Technology allows us to not only 'listen in' but also to interact and communicate with others from across the world, thus opening opportunities to question, to learn, and to help others learn. Those who are open educators and learners are providing new windows for others to look through and in doing so are helping to stimulate curiosity and a wonder for learning. Yes we can Google practically anything we want to but in limiting ourselves to just this, we can often miss out on the chances to question and discuss the detail of the hows and whys. 

My take away? We must remind ourselves to enjoy the wonder of learning in its many shapes and sizes - formal, non formal, and informal. Sharing these experiences can only benefit others. 

Academic fitness: Is your writing flabby or fit? #Acwri

I came cross an article that is titled 'Ask the Professor about academic style'. This was written to respond to the question: 

"Why is so much academic writing stodgy and unreadable? To be taken seriously, do I have to write like that too?"

The author Dr Helen Sword begins by asking academic peers what they personally thought a stylish academic writer would produce. These are the responses: 

• express complex ideas clearly and succinctly
• write with originality, imagination and creative flair
• engage and hold their reader’s attention through relevant examples and anecdotes
• convey a sense of energy, intellectual commitment and even passion
• produce elegant, carefully crafted sentences, using language appropriate to the audience, discipline and subject matter
• tell a story
• provide their readers with aesthetic and/or intellectual pleasure
• avoid jargon, except where specialised terminology is essential to the argument.  

I for one have laboured over academic papers with a dictionary at hand to attempt to make sense of the heavy text, jargon and often staid approach to writing that is impersonal and frankly not quite capturing my imagination. 

In Helen's paper she says that "'academic style' need not be an oxymoron". She goes on to advocate those writers who do truly have their readers at heart. 


Verbal fitness

Helen provides some excellent tips in the article and one of these is 'verbal fitness'. Aside from using stodgy prose, she highlights the redundancy in the way we write and over use of 'waste words' such as it, this, that, there. 

Now what really caught my eye was the Writer's Diet Test Helen has created, where you can submit between 200-2000 words and it will score your prose as lean, fit & trim, needs toning, flabby or heart attack. Words are analysed and colour coded as verbs, nouns, prepositions, adjectives/adverbs, or waste words. 

The Writer's Diet Test comes with the caveat that it is an automated feedback tool, not an assessment tool. The test identifies some of the sentence-level grammatical features that most frequently weigh down academic prose. It is not designed to judge the overall quality of your writing — or anyone else's.  

However the test is useful and Helen's book complements this. When writing, the word count can often be an issue. The test at the very least can help you weed out those waste words.  

Helen Sword http://writersdiet.com/

References

Sword, H. (2008) Ask the Professor about Academic Style. MAI Review, 2008, 3, Writing Workshop 7. 

Sword, H. (2016) The Test. The Writer's Diet [website] http://writersdiet.com/ 

Sword, H. (2016) Writer's Diet: A Guide to Fit Prose. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

You can't eat an elephant whole #wol

A few weeks ago I had a nice surprise when I received a comment on my blog post which was not spam. I choose to monitor comments and whilst they are few and far between, I delete those that have no relevance. Well this comment was relevant. I confess to doing a little happy dance whenever a comment leads to an extended discussion, no matter how brief!

Simon Fogg  took the time leave a comment  on my last post to say:

"... just to encourage you, people are reading :) ... I am up to nearly a million page views on my blog and have never written for an audience (as you will quickly tell from older posts), mainly as a place online to host my content that is accessible wherever I am connected to the internet ..."

I then of course checked out Simon's blog, which was an interesting journey in itself (lots more to learn from Simon, but that's scope for another post). The immediate connection was 'working out loud' and I noted a post he had written which included Michelle Ocker who instigated the #WOL circle I am now involved in. 

Simon also tweeted a post in relation to my blog post

eating "elephants": @suebecks @johnstepper's treadmill reminded me of TMI's Elephant Technique @crumphelen @rjsantamaria75 @HalaMansour #wol

— Simon Fogg (@srjf) August 2, 2016

The elephant technique Simon referred to is useful when you are faced with very large tasks, i.e. elephant sized tasks. In my previous post I had talked about taking small steps and celebrating these as progress. 

So what are elephant tasks? I looked up TMI's Elephant Technique to remind myself. They give examples like:

• Overwhelming tasks demanding prolonged effort
• Tasks in which little progress can be seen after each stage
• Tasks often put off or reduced in priority in the short term.

I could certainly relate to these, the treadmill being a personal one and the juggling of multiple projects in my working life. The advice given is to:

• Divide the elephant into "bite-size" pieces.
• Schedule regular "bites" of the elephant as "task of the day", "task of the week", etc.
• Make sure you "eat" a bite every day in addition to completing your other routine tasks.
• Make sure you finish the elephant.
• Concentrate on no more than 1 or 2 elephant tasks at a time. 

I think I would add try not to be eating too many different elephants at any given time....

Mastering the Elephant Technique enables you to progress from a 'maintenance' person (just getting by to maintain the status quo) to a 'development' person (embrace learning new skills and ensuring goals are translated into actions).

When I met with my #WOL circle we talked about some of the things we could do to make sure we recorded the progress of the tasks we were setting ourselves. The examples we shared included:

• Having a pocket notebook as an ongoing to do list
• Getting a good old fashioned diary that has a week to a page on the left and a notes page on the right.
  Tip: Moleskin do a great 18 month diary July-Dec. 
• Using our smartphone and the Notes app
• Using an app like Todoist via your phone, tablet, or desktop.    

Reference

The Elephant Technique 

Reflecting on #WOL

We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Aristotle

We are now into week 5 of our #WOL circle and weekly blogging for a number of reasons has not become a habitual activity for me... 

Why? Because life things get in the way. Things happen that you don't expect that can impact on your life and work. I ask myself does it really matter that I have not blogged. I'm writing for me with no expectations others will read to be honest. This blog is after all a random collection of my thoughts in relation to activities, course and presentations I have been involved in. For me though this is one of the ways I practice working out loud. It is not always reflective and this is an area I need to focus on. So whilst it doesn't really matter if I blog weekly or every few weeks, developing the habit will I know help me capture my progress.

This week our tetrad of four met via Skype and we discussed the week's topic which was looking at the challenges we were facing relating to the achievement of our chosen goal. As a group we have bonded quite quickly and I think we all felt comfortable admitting that due to various factors our progress was perhaps slower than we might have liked. Indeed we seemed to make a pact that this was actually ok! All progress is good and small steps should be seen as a positive. We agreed that meeting as a circle kept our goals as achievable, but the suggested time span might well be extended. By discussing this together there was a sense of relief that we had not let ourselves down or each other. We teased out the blocks we had experienced and made suggestions to each other where appropriate. 

Unsurprisingly one of our challenges was time. However through talking we recognised that our use of time can be measured in different ways from clear outputs but also thinking and planning time. We had all devoted time to this and as such realised we had achieved more than we thought. 

We talked about the John Stepper's blog post 'Touching the treadmill' which highlights the importance of breaking your goal down into small steps. (Which reminds me I need to start doing this and get back into running to achieve another goal!)

"Can’t go for a run 4 times a week for an hour? Try once a week. Still too much? Go for 5 minutes. Not working for you? Walk to the treadmill and touch it. Every day."

Helen Crump introduced us to BJ Fogg's Tiny Habits method. This advocates:

Only three things will change behaviour in the long term.

• Option A. Have an epiphany
• Option B. Change your environment (what surrounds you)
• Option C. Take baby steps

The first option is less likely to happen, so focusing on small steps and creating an environment that can help you feel comfortable working is something that resonated with me. Secondly allowing for space to think and rest may mean moving and taking breaks. I came across John Fawkes Medium post on 20 little habits that will help you live a better life, which refers to the need of practising good habits. It's worth reading the whole article but one of the habits looks at the value of the pomodoro technique. Essentially this suggests you 

work for 20–30 minutes, then take a break for 5–10 minutes.

Repeat a few times, then take a longer 30+ minute break. 

When we are working it is easy to lose focus. Once we recognise this and plan in breaks, it is likely our productivity will increase. 

So coming back to my goal, I had originally chosen to learn programming. I quickly felt overwhelmed as this was to broad. Where should I start? I began by looking what my personal learning network had to say in a variety of social media spaces - Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. It didn't take long to discover a course on Creative programming (aimed at those with no prior experience) and another on Social Media Analytics. Both are online and free through FutureLearn and each runs for about 3 weeks. The ethos of the courses evidence 'learning out loud' and engagement in open conversations/discussions is asynchronous so I know I can contribute at times that work for me. These course feel doable and time will tell whether this satisfies all I want to achieve. The important thing for me is that I will have made a start. I need to carve out some dedicated time for this study, and I think early mornings will work best for me. 

In preparation for next week's WOL circle we are encouraged to develop our networks. The guide suggests one way to accelerate developing our own network is to leverage networks that already exist. I need to draw upon my connections and develop a list of people I can reach out to. There may be other learning opportunities I can engage in. 

Working out loud guides: http://workingoutloud.com/circle-guides/