3C - Sources of Information

Sources of information. I use Web 2.0 in everyday life as my main sources of information. I seem to rely on the internet an awful lot and I wonder how we ever coped without it! 

Google is the main site I do my research on. It is reliable and always contains the information I am looking for; there are many agents and audition websites that I often search on, all of which can be found on google. It's also a great learning tool. The great image section allows me to find pictures for my posters I create when advertising and writing newsletters. The videos are useful for researching choreography, learning new styles of dance and listening to new music tracks. Google Maps is also an extremely helpful part of the online Google site; often I have to travel to new venues and/or schools for my work and google maps shows a clear view of where I need to go and different form of transport with directions. 

I use Facebook as a source of information for my practice. I have a few friends on my profile that are in the industry that often post about jobs or shows. There are also many pages and groups that I have joined to find out about upcoming opportunities. 

Work is very important, I work as a teacher in a few different schools at the moment. It is essential that I work well with the other teachers. I often discuss teaching techniques with them and get feedback on how I am teaching. I learn new ways of keeping the class fun and active, also methods of maintaining a happy, safe environment and good behaviour. 

Twitter is another source of information very useful for my professional work. I have previously found out about auditions from a few accounts that i follow which is really helpful. Without the use of Web 2.0 and these cleverly created social networking sites, I would miss out on many events that would help me in my career. 

Friends, my final way of sourcing information. Thankfully I trained at an academy with many teachers who have all worked in the Musical Theatre business in one way or another. I made lots of friends with my past teachers and fellow students over the years and continue to meet new people whilst working in the industry at the moment. After all - it's all about who you know isn't it? Just talking to friends, having a catch up, teaches me many new aspects of the professional industry. We can discuss future auditions that may be coming up or our previous experiences. There are always new jobs around or someone I know, who may be holding a casting or going to one, who will tell me of these updates. This I consider a casual way of resourcing information, most of the time it is unintentional, because they are my friends, it's only natural that we discuss these sort of things as we chat but obviously, these pieces of "information" are always helpful to my career and help me to learn too. 

Task 3A - Current Networks

There are many current networks that professional practitioners use everyday like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube to name but a few. They often post updates about new shows or programmes/films that they will be appearing in. Some celebrities use twitter to engage with their fans directly and some sites like Flickr and Instagram allow fans to follow and see pictures posted from the celebs themselves. I myself follow people that I admire on Instagram and Twitter so I can see what they are doing and I like the fact that I can tweet and chat to them directly. 

I have noticed that many social networks these days are crucial for for advertising. Not only celebrities advertise but also companies like shops and restaurants. There are many Facebook pages, for example, that are constantly sending out messages and posting pictures notifying the public about new offers and stores opening. 

I am a member of a few social network sites, mainly for socialising with friends and family; though they are also very useful for finding out about upcoming jobs and auditions available. I have previously found out about a few auditions through some people that I follow that are in the industry and some friends that I have on facebook. Google is also an essential, I will continue to search for auditions as google usually finds me many answers! 

As a teacher I have had a few requests from my pupils on some social networking sites. When I was a student, my teachers were not allowed to associate with me on these sites which I completely agreed with. I have had to delete my requests as it would be completely unprofessional to have my pupils on my profile. This is where my professional work and private life must stay separate. I would not want them to see my pictures from my holidays for example. I think that in the near future I will make a new page that I could make public and advertise my work and professional profile. It is essential that, as professional workers in the industry, we must keep our profiles on private and be very selective of who we allow to comment and see our posts & pictures. 

Task 2D - Inquiry

QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS QUESTIONS...

I suppose many questions crop up in life everyday, but which ones do we actually take note of? Which questions stick in our minds and encourage us to delve further into finding the answers? Which questions will we never find the answers to? 

I've have been making this list over the past week. I have posted my questions, some are questions I have thought about my professional and the 'talent'/ musical theatre industry and some are from my teaching work or may have just made me stop and think.


Why do parents want their children to do dance/acting/singing classes from such a young age?How has dance become even more popular amongst children over the past 5 years?Why, as new professional artists, do we work for free?If television talent shows didn't exist, would there be more of a chance for professionals to get jobs?Are talent competitions on tv a good or bad thing for the public to get their few minutes of fame?Do talent shows on tv really find raw talent?How do you become a "professional" in this profession?Why do 'untrained' celebrities get presenting jobs/main parts in theatre, when there are professionals like us who would be much better at the job?



Teaching Questions:How, if at all, do props help children get more involved with the song and dance?Is it best to make sure that all children know exactly what they are doing in a routine or allow them to just 'follow' the others?How do you engage children who are just in the class because the parents have paid for them to be there?What are the best techniques of teaching to help children with difficulties to remember a routine?Why do some teachers not understand that kids will be kids and that they have their own personality and ways of expressing themselves?Why do some teachers like their pupils to do everything identically, like robots?



I have many, many more questions that arise everyday and I hope that some of these will help me with the further tasks/modules during the rest of the BAPP course.

2c Reflective Theory Task

What is Reflective Practice?

Reflective Practice can be an informal part of your daily routine, or even a required element of a job or class. In one informal type of reflective practice, a person can use the moments just before sleep to recall events of the day. This type of reflective practice can help a person to decide what the priorities for the coming day should be for example. In this way, reflective practice is a means to organize actions and reduce the stress of daily life. 

My relationship with Reflective Practice

In my profession, there have already been a few times where I have used ‘critical reflection;’ mainly in my previous studies. Many times I’ve had to put reflection into practice. In dance for example, I would have instantly reflected on something I had just done: Why didn’t I land my pirouette securely? Even, when looking at a watch for example, you might think, ‘how long did I just spend in that shop?’ This is a basic form of reflection. After reading “Reader 2” I have learnt many different ways of reflection and theories too. I’ve realised that in everyday life we all reflect in one way or another without noticing.

When I was in college, part of my contextual studies was based upon reflection. I needed to keep a journal of my week, recording information of my classes and learning.  One part of my journal was to make note of all corrections I was given in class and reflect on them; How could I improve? What plan of action would I use to make my improvements? I needed to learn from my experiences and keep a log of my mistakes. I was required to reflect when writing critiques on productions I had seen; also, when I was required to write essays on my experiences whilst rehearsing and performing. 

Others uses of reflection in life

Journal writing 

People use journal writing as a form of reflection in many different professions and adult education. Jenifer A.Moon has written about Learning Journals (Moon and Dawson, 2006, Moon, 1999) People that use reflective practice are those whose job is to be involved in a process of change. Nurses, Teachers, Architects and Artists. Some individuals may practice more formal journal writing as a part of counseling or treatment.

Exploring Different Theories 

Howard Gardner, looked further into the idea that people had different ways to 

engage with understanding and learning. He introduced the idea of multiple 

intelligences (Gardner, 1983). He said people are intelligent in a number of ways. Personally, I agree with his theories. Everybody has their own way of learning and thinking. There are people that I know who learn differently to the way I do. They engage and reflect to other world experiences by using other tools for learning. Do you agree that there are different types of learners - multiple intelligencers? Do you know friends that are ‘Logical - mathematical thinkers’ for example?   

John Dewey & Donald Schön 

John Dewey used the term ‘reflective thought’ to talk about ways for us to be aware that we are having an experience, ways to find links it to other experiences and ways to find meaning for ourselves. 

Donald Schön (1987) introduced the idea of reflection-in-action, and reflection-on- 

action. Dewey also makes this temporal distinction, looking at how the time impacts on how you engage with new ideas, ‘Present’ or ‘future’ being two distinct and different ways 

to engage with experience. (Jackson, 1998; Dewey, 1934) Both of their theories are quite similar. I definitely reflect in action. It’s part of what I do, if I see that children are finding a routine difficult that I am teaching in class, I immediately reflect on what I see and change the routine for example. I often use this method of reflection-in-action, it is essential when dancing, acting, singing and teaching, quick adaptation is essential. Which type of reflection do you do, in action or on action? I feel this completely depends on what kind of work you do. Writers and chefs are professions that require ‘reflection-on-action.’ Robert Kottcamp says that reflection-in-action is harder which is understandable considering that he works as a writer and academic and therefore is used to thinking back on things. 

I feel that there are so many different theories about reflective practice. There are so many different ways of doing it too, consciously and sub-consciously. Everyday we are reflecting and learning from our experiences. It’s up to you whether you choose to reflect by writing a journal or reflecting before you fall asleep at night, it is always helpful in life even when you don’t realise. I know that as of tomorrow I will think differently when reflecting-in-action especially, now I will be aware that I am “reflecting”.  I will mentally make note of my quick adaptations when I’m dancing, changing direction to avoid other dancers or a hazard in the space. I will try to do more Journal Writing Reflecting as I believe this will help me to look back on my experiences and learn from them; I will be able to improve and learn from mistakes and difficulties I may face in my work and day to day life. 

I’ve have learnt a lot about reflective practice from Reader 2 and by doing some further research online. 

www.wisegeek.com/what-is-reflective-practice.htm

http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/reflecti.htm

Task 2b - Reflective Writing Task & Journal Writing Experience

Reflective Writing Task 

So, I've been journaling, tracking thoughts, feelings, evaluating etc... all as part of Task2!

I've quite liked some of the techniques that were suggested to us. I have chosen to post a picture of my journal on a day at work. I used listing and a few spider diagrams to reflect on my day. This helped me to plan for my next day of work.  I took note of positive things that occured during my classes and things that I needed to organised for the following week. I also wrote down feelings and adjectives to describe my day. 

Journal Writing Experience
Here I have explained my thoughts on the 'ways of writing' for keeping a Journal. 

Description & initial reflection: fairly simple I quite liked this method of reflective writing. On a day when I was at home for example, I wrote down some notes about what I did throughout the day and how I was feeling was a big part of my 'descriptive journal' because I wasn't doing much, I seemed to reflect more on how I was feeling and the mood that I was in eg. relaxed, chilled, lazy

List: I really liked this method, it didn't take as long as the other 'ways of writing'. I usually make lists of things that I need to do so this was a good way for me to keep a quick journal that I could reflect on at the end of the day.  I often wrote down words that described my day and things I saw that stuck in my mind. 

Evaluation: I didn't really like this method, so I chose not to use it. It was all a bit too detailed for me,  especially on days where I didn't particularly learn anything or do anything worth 'evaluating'. Only on days when I was working, I could use evaluation to reflect on new experiences and discoveries. 

Graphs, charts and diagrams: brain-storming and spider diagrams helped me to expand more on thoughts of things that had happened during my day. I found this a more enjoyable way of keeping a journal. 

What if?: this was fun, sometimes I ended up having ridiculous outcomes to my day. From buying a top in a shop in London to modelling it in Paris for example! 

Another view: This was weird, one day I chose to try writing about my day as my handbag. I wrote about how it felt being carried and chucked around, sitting on the floor for hours feeling bored when I wasn’t using it.  Writing as another person was awkward, I couldn’t quite think of how they would describe me and my day, maybe boring? or what they were thinking during some of our conversations. This was a challenging way of writing, I don’t think I’ll use this method again. It was very different I suppose, instead of just writing lists of my events.  

Task 2a - Reflective Journal Task

When I was younger, I didn't ever write a diary or keep a journal. It wasn't something that I enjoyed doing. I'm quite private when it comes to expressing feelings and stuff. 

When I was in college, part of the contextual studies was to keep a daily or weekly journal. This I did not enjoy at all though it did help me when I needed to reflect back on my classes and certain things I had learnt. 

Over the past few weeks, I chose to keep a brief journal as 'notes' on my iPhone. I chose to take a small note in bullet point form and sometimes a list when I had more to make a note of. This way I could keep track of certain parts of the week that stood out for me, things that were a challenge, work I did, events that I went to, emotions I was feeling etc.   

I'm not sure that I'll continue to keep a diary after I complete my Module1 studies, but if it will help me to learn and reflect easily then of course I will consider it for the future. I might try a different way of recording my thoughts like doing a brain storm diagram to make the whole 'journal' a bit more interesting for me to do. 

Task 1b - Reader 1

Well, this was the part of task 1 I was least looking forward to doing. I dreaded the thought of reading this pack with an overload of internet web information that I have no clue about and felt I would be left completely bamboozled!!! :|

Anyway, after taking the time to read it, I was relieved to find that I actually did understand most of it. How the world ever coped without the amazing communications technology back in the day is just amazing. These days everything in life always refers back to Web 2.0. The great development of this second generation of web-based community facilitates all work around the world.

Web 1.0 only allowed us to create a website/page for others to view without any kind of interaction or option to submit our own thoughts or opinions. The features of Web 2.0 have been so cleverly created. We are the creators, we control the data added and can edit who is able to comment and view it. Social networking for example, the sites can be accessed from all around the world from many different new technologic devices.

Participation! When reading Reader 1 the section 'Architectures of participation' really stuck in my mind. Web 2.0 is Participation, that's when the penny dropped for me. With Web 2.0 the whole world can participate. YouTube for example, a huge social site which has over 800 million users and 4 billion views per day; a very popular way to communicate and a huge search engine online for everyone to use.  I am a fan of social networking, I have accounts on many social network sites. I love "participating," the fact that I can search for friends and pages that interest me is great. I spend a lot of my time interacting with family and friends from around the world thanks to Web 2.0. A big advantage is that I have the power to show as much or as little as I want to online. I can share my thoughts and post videos and photos online for only certain people or can make them available for everyone to see.

Work & Learning - Web 2.0 used for work, any type of work at all! I previously used sites such a Wikipedia for homework when I was younger and unaware that it was an 'un-authorised source'. This is a slight dis-advantage of Web 2.0. There are many sites and communities that allow 'anyone' to change information and post facts online. This is something that myself as a student has become aware of over the years. Many sites don't give secure information and so sometimes it proves a little more difficult when researching using Web 2.0 for my studies. Google, for example, one of the biggest ever search engines. It is very good for finding an answer in a public forum to any question you may have.

Ethical Considerations - Confidentiality and Privacy can be an issue with web-based thinking. There are many "precautions" that we need to take when using Web 2.0 to interact and/or for work. I believe that social sites should be made completely private. If you are using a facebook page for work or advertising, for example, I would ensure that the layout and comments are kept completely professional. I make sure that I keep my professional work private, I don't like to post private information on my Twitter page for example because I know that my profile is open for everyone to see. I feel that everyone using social networking sites such as YouTube and Google Blogger should be aware of what comments they make and what they are blogging publicly. It is essential that if you don't want strangers leaving their opinions on your things that you ensure to change your privacy settings.

Overall, I feel that Web 2.0 has more pros than cons, it is continuing to improve and evolve everyday. More and more people rely on it on a daily basis and it is the best, most up to date way to interact and participate publicly now in 2013.

Task 1c - YouTube

Hey everyone!! 

I've been away for a bit so will be posting all of my tasks very shortly!

Hope you are all well... for now, here's my Youtube Vid. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PALyqvYgyg0 

I did something different using powerpoint instead of me talking about how I felt about starting the course. I like to use pictures to express my aspirations and intentions. 

Enjoy! 

love x 

My BAPP Video

http://www.youtube.com/v/PALyqvYgyg0?autohide=1&version=3&attribution_tag=Er1GQWBJbDI0aE8cZFiVyg&autoplay=1&feature=share&autohide=1&showinfo=1