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Four down one to go!

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The learning experince is fantastic. I feel like a junior doctor on call 24/7 in an A&E. Not because the pressures is anything like as great, but because it has me engaged and totally 'in the flow'.

In the flow chart annotated

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5 Reasons you will NOT compete your course

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This is wonderful from 

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Five Reasons from the wonderful Xina Gooding Broderick 

  1. You didn’t set aside sufficient time to complete your course so create a timetable. Build in compassion. Build in flexibility and re-schedule. Adjust for it. And move in. We’re going for progress, not perfection. 

  2. You didn’t realise it would be as challenging as it is. See Barbara Oakley on ‘Learning How To Learn’. The physiology of procrastination and defeat. Do study skills. Know your learning style. Get plenty of rest. Find a way to embed that learning. Podcasts. Take them on a walk. 

  3. You didn’t ask for help when you needed it. Speak to your tutor or teacher. Keep asking until you understand. You need to understand this. 

  4. No accountability. When left to your own devices. 

  5. You downgraded your requirement for completing it. What are your pros and cons. Every component to decide if this is correct for you in the first place. 









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Flying, Gliding or Diving

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Succinctly put by Marc Lewis of the School of Communication Arts, London.

You are either 'flying' : in which case, watch out world, your are taking it by storm!

Or 'gliding' : in which case, you are coasting along well inside your comfort zone, happily underachieving and not challenged.

Or you are 'diving' : you are heading towards the bottom. Nothing you do is right and you have no idea how to get out of this mess.

There's been research on this kind of thing for business school students. 

Permalink 1 comment (latest comment by Jessica Shier, Monday, 4 Jul 2022, 13:23)
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Oh cripes - another August Bank Holiday gets washed down the plughole

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From E-Learning IV

Fig. 1 Wind and weather chart courtesy of WindGuru for Seaford Bay, August 25th

  • Day
  • Date
  • Time
  • Wind Speed (Beaufort Scale)
  • Wind Gust Speed
  • Wind Direction
  •  Temperature
  • Wind Direction
  • Cloud cover and forecast density at various descending levels (High to low)
  • Forecast precipitation in millimeters

Stars - the degree to which those who love strong winds will love it. Three stars is an unmissable opportunity for windsurfers and kite-boards.

Too wet, too windy - but perfect for the diehard windsurfer or kiteboarder: I'm neither. I'll be standing on the shore looking at the waves breaking on the beach in an hour or so. The sailing club's Race Officer will decide if sailing is on or not. The serious issue is if we start a race heavy weather could make bringing dinghies in treacherous. If it goes ahead, as Saturday, I will be drenched to the skin helming the safety boat - a RIB we bring out of Newhaven Harbour.

Lessons learnt lately?

The opportunity to improve sailing skills is made all the more swift courtesy of downloadable eBooks and YouTube. After earlier trials inland on a lake yesterday became my first outing helming a dinghy on the sea, and my first race - we had three. Before I took to the water I checked a few items off from a guide to dinghy sailing and at lunch I followed up further tips on YouTube. Is there a limit to what the Internet can tell or show you? The list of tips and insights given by fellow sailors would be long: fixing bits of the boat, getting it off the trolley and into the ocean ... getting it back.

Late onto the water I was a good 30 seconds off the start of the race and never made it up in the Club Laser. The second race I was in the thick of it as 22 dinghies josled for position - two years of crewing a Fireball payed off and sneakily I managed to be one of the first Lasers into this race and for the first lap of three led the fleet - it felt like by some fluke I'd got around the first lap of a F1 Grand Prix in a Citreon 2CV. Staying upright is about as far as my skills go for now. The third race was scuppered from the start as the tiller handle came off; this might be like a fisherman dropping his rod in the water and having to resort to a hand-line ... or a jokey losing his stirrups at the start of a race ... or doing a cycle race without any handlebars: sort of.

However, it is remarkable what you learn and how much more you learn in adverse conditions. My 'skills' have been plagued for weeks by my a clumsy swapping of hands when you tack between the mainsheet and the tiller, every time you tack your hands have to swap duties, the lead hand taking the rope on the mainsail (main sheet), the rear hand taking the tiller ... well, my tiller-handle was gone, which turned every tack into a drill. It worked. I'd liken it to any sports coach giving competitors a challenge in order to fix a problem, or to speed up 'adaptation'.

Trial and error, mistakes, dealing with the unexpected and a challenge ... being pushed. Learning works best when it is anything but 'plain sailing' - we learn so much from mistakes, from figuring things out, by asking for help ... and giving help in turn. How do we keep the human context alive in e-learning? Are we not like astronauts on a lone mission a million miles from earth?

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Get on with it!!!!!

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From E-Learning IV

 Fig. 1 You have sixty minutes. 

I also have one, three and thirty minute timers. I use sixty when I simple MUST get a few hundred words down on the page. I use one minute as a kickstart that can see me happily working away two or three hours later.

This is for some fiction writing. I know that the most crucial thing is to sit down and get on with it. Without distractions. I don't allow myself distractions during this hour. My usual way of doing things is summed up in two words 'anything but ...' Typically I will prepare, research, think about it, jot down some notes ... even sleep on it, even, in fact, especially in the middle of the day.

I've got four or five hours in the bag. I need to lay down a couple more today.

 

 

 

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Positivity Challenge

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Saturday, 2 Aug 2014, 11:35

Fig.1. United Kingdom and Ireland

Prompted by nieces and my sister I have now joined the Facebook 'Positivity' challenge.

You post three positive things a day for five days then nominate three others to do the same. I have written 15 'Positivities' already and will adjust and prioritise each day. My wife, Great Britain and learning something everyday (with a plug for the Open University) got a mention today. When I was eleven or twelve I pencilled in all the counties of England, Scotland and Wales where I had visited - parents divorced and living in Cumbria and Northumberland got that one started, with cousins in County Durham and North Yorkshire, and then trips to Scotland and Lincolnshire, London and Oxfordshire. The rule was I had to spend a night in the county. Before I'd taken a look at the above map (and not taking into consideration boundary changes) I guessed that bar a few counties I had stayed in all: largely as work producing training and information videos has had me on overnights all over the shop (nuclear power industry, manufactures, retailers, Post Office, pharmaceuticals ...), and Northern Ireland courtesy of a girlfriend of 18 months. Looking again I think I could add that I've never stayed in Essex, nor many of the Welsh Counties (or valleys), a couple still in Northern Ireland and probably a couple in North Eastern Scotland even if I have driven through. I started the same kind of thing on the 98 departements of France and guess that I've 'done' a good fifty, once again, thanks as much to TV work repeatedly travelling to far flung, non-touristy destinations for a TV news agency I worked for. I miss travelling. 

A few years ago I took up the challenge of posting a photo a day in Blipfoto; I took this one step further and determined, with the need for some criteria for editing a day's pictures, to posting something 'to feel good about' - this task is similar, though potentially more abstract if the idea, rather than the image comes first. 

Permalink 6 comments (latest comment by Jonathan Vernon, Tuesday, 29 Jul 2014, 08:21)
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B822 BK 2 C6 Precepts

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 21 Feb 2014, 17:26

B822 BK 2 C6 Precepts

Especially actions that DISCOURAGE speculation/creativity Henry (2010:93)

Curiosity

Charles Handy (1991) Creativity in Mangement, Radio 1, B822

Forgiveness

Charles Handy (1991)

Love

Charles Handy (1991)

A sense of direction

Schon, D.A. (1983) The Reflective Practioner

Some ‘Set Breakers’ Henry (2010:96)

1. Develop broad background experience and many interests

2. Find and challenge your own blind spots

3. Explore many different perspectives

4. Challenge yourself

5. Develop good browsing facilities

6. Change techniques or different mental modes

7. Seek out people with other points of view

8. In a group

Relevance bias

 

1. Dry Run

2. Quota of alternatives

3. Inverse optional question

4. Checklist of transformations

5. Reverse the problem

6. Boundary relaxation

7. What difference?

8. Get several people to try it

9. Deep questioning

10. Challenge

11. Fresh eye

6.4 Value of Play

1. Play is key to learning activity

2. The objects of play are both objective and subjective

3. The ability of play helps create the sense of independence.

4. Play offers a protected area of illusion

5. Plays is a way of managing unfulfilled need.

6. Play can lead to a particular state of mind.

7. Play breaks down outside certain emotional limits.

8. Shared play builds relationships

A. Choice of Setting

B. Choice of team members

C. Climate to aim for

D. Don’t demystify

E. Management of coping mechanisms

F. An aid to team building

 

McCaskey (1988)

· Problem finding (experience)

· Map building

· Janusian Thinking

· Controlling and not controlling

· Using domain and direction

· Planning rather than goal-directed planning

· Humour that oils

· Charisma

· Using ad hoc structures such as task force and project teams

· Using a core group embedded in a network of contracts and information

· ‘Turbulence management’

N.B. Creativity needs space vs. time pressure, interruption

· Create Space

6.8 involve others

The more participants you have, the more ideas you get.

‘Successfully creative people are often deeply committed to a particular domain, that has strong internal significance to them, and they focus very firmly on particular goals’. (e.g. Tessa Ross, Lionel Wigram, William Hague)

'Passion and persistence can motivate sustained work; attract the loyalty of helpers; create awareness of you and your project in people who have relevant resources; and reassure those who need to take risks on your behalf.’ Henry (2010:114)

CATWOE p115

  • Blind chance
  • Wide-ranging exploration
  • The prepared mind
  • Individualised Action

6.12 Manage the Process Henry (2010:1113)

· Get the parameters right

· Record

· Sustain pace and energy

· Develop trust

· Keep the experience positive

· Plan

· Do – analyse either side and separately

· What?

· Why?

Learn from experience of others

  • Experiment

REFERENCE

Adams, J.L. (1987) Chase, Chance and Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty; New York; Columbia University Press.

Austin, J.H. (1978) Chase, Chance and Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty: New York: Columbia University Press.

McCaskey, M.B. (1988) ‘The challenge of managing ambiguity’, in Pondy, L.R, Boland, R.J and Thomas, H (eds) Managing Ambiguity and Change, new York, pp 2-11

Schon, A.A. (1983) The Reflective Practioner: How Professionals think in Action, London: Temple Smith

Wetherall, A. and Nunamaker, J (1999) Getting Results from Electronic Meetings

Winnicott, D.W (1972) Playing and Reality. Harmondsworth (1983) Davis, M and Wallbridge, D (1983) Boundary and Space: An Introduction to the Work of D.W. Winnicott. Harmondsorth.

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