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Challenging behaviour fills me with dread.

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 20 Nov 2020, 18:33


Personality and upbringing puts me in a bad place when faced with challenging behaviour anywhere. I can't abide rule breakers. I like order. I expect students to be keen not  disruptive; I am doomed to be disappointed. 

Running through a SWOT analysis as a step towards reflection in teaching we dwelt on what more than one of us brought up as a weakness or threat; that we had faced down or failed in front of challenging behaviour. I had a few showdowns in 2007 which put me off having anything to do with Year 9 students - at least in the classroom setting. I've been teaching and coaching swimmers since 2002; that has generally been a different matter, though I've learnt not to be phased by younger teens.

Understanding how to change behaviour came up with my recently quality niece Dr Vicki Russ. She sent me a couple of papers. My thinking was on how to change behaviours so that young people would be compliant with a simple regime for talking their medications - say if they have asthma. We also discussed how patients fail so baldy to follow physiotherapy guidelines.

It isn't that complicated. With young people look to their parents. Where's the solution to that though? We can't fix things at home, so we will never fix things in the class. 

Will this help me:


Here's 'A Guide on The Com-B Model of Behaviour' from Social Change UK. 

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Back to big swim club teaching & coaching

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Mid Sussex Marlins Pathways for swimmers

I'm back at Mid-Sussex Marlins the Sussex swimming club I joined in June 2008 and from which I have had only a couple of breaks - a year at the Open University, Milton Keynes in 2011 and the last four months as the head coach at a much smaller club down the road.

This chart could have been drawn up by me. I like to reduce things to infographics like this. 

Today I was teaching four sessions: x3 30mins and x1 45 mins, our Grades 1, 2, & 3 and a Grade 7 group. I enjoyed slipping back into the routine: getting to know and remember the name of every child during the swim, having a teenage Level 1 assistant and working through a new assessment sheet for these 7 to 11 year olds.

I was impressed to see an Olympic Trials Qualifying Times notice on the wall.

I'll be coaching too - without the head coach responsibilities. 

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Coach Vernon

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 30 Aug 2019, 17:33

As the recently appointed Head Coach at Hailsham SC this paper will be my bible. It has been used for the last few years at Mid Sussex Marlins SC where I have been coaching since 2008.

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Props

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Monday, 26 Jan 2015, 10:29

 

Fig.1 Mussel shells

Three times a week I teach swimming to kids age 7-12. All classes run for 45 minutes. Each week we work on a different stroke or school. Every time include some fun in the session rather than having them bash up and down the pool doing drills or parts of the stroke. The fun brings them back. At this age make it a drag and they either play up or don't show.

I do this thing called 'sea otter'. For one length, 25m, they have to pretend to be a sea otter. I don't need to show them a picture. Most can visualise it from a natural history film. The sea otter swims into the kelp and pulls up mussels. They bring a rock to the surface too, then lay on their backs, breaking open the shells and eating the content. I take them through the actions: long armed doggied paddle, duck dive to the bottom of the pool, onto their backs at the surface, a gentle flutter kick while they break open the shells, eat the contents, throw away the shell pieces then roll onto their fronts and repeat the exercise. I expect them to do this four to five times as they swim the length of the pool. Some like to make squeaking noises. All grin. All take their improvisation seriously and do a great job.

I tick off the long armed doggie paddle, the duck dive, the push off the bottom, the flutter kick on their back, and developing fluency and love for the water as all worthwhile. From this they improve their front crawl and back crawl, they make steps towards a tumble-turn and even diving (several don't, none do well) and they have fun - always deserved after 15/20 minutes of 'real' swimming: lengths up and down the pool to warm up, kicking with a float or on their back.

I play other games. Maybe three such interludes for a couple of minutes at most across the session.

Six years of doing this with this club and the teenagers laugh about 'otter' some even insisting once in a while to add it to their coached session where they are swimming over 2200m in an hour. 

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Enriching stereotypes: FutureLearn 'Start Writing Fiction' with The OU

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Tuesday, 2 Dec 2014, 17:42
From Writing

Fig.1. No my usual spot for writing - on a retreat in Devon

Invited by the OU moderator for comments on week long series of exercise on 'enriching character; I write:

"Extraordinary. I'm on my second pass. I came through early, and now return not wanting to get ahead of the conversation. Particularly useful as I am actively writing at the moment, so this is the best of all learning because it is applied. Regarding character it about giving them shape, depth and 'points of interest' - more 6D than even the 2D we are asked to get away from. I visualise characters as hedgehogs with many prickles, but only a few of these matter to the story - though all of them matter to the notebook which I'm gradually coming to care about more and more, cursing the times I 'have a thought' and don't get it down somewhere safely. I am hugely pleased to be here and very proud to be an OU graduate already - not, sadly, from this faculty: yet!"

I'm finding the oddest of balances in my life too: writing for myself from 4.00am to 8.00am. Picking up work from 10.00am to 1.00pm. Then a siesta. I live in the wrong country for this, I'd prefer to be in a hammock in the shade by a pool. Dream on. Evenings from 5.00pm to 9.00pm I am usually 'poolside' teaching or coaching swimmers. Delighting yesterday evening to be back with some squad swimmers I last saw four years ago - now in the mid teens, some achieving amazing things in the water, all at that gangly stage of youth development my own children have come through in the last year. 

The issue then is how or where or why I fit in the OU module <<L120 L'Ouverture. Intermediate French >> I committed to. Learning a language is daunting and outside my comfort zone. What I do know now, not surprisingly, is that all learning comes about as a result of concerted and consistent effort over a long period of time. 

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How e-learning would benefit from looking at some s-training

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Saturday, 13 Oct 2012, 16:10
20121013-085349.jpg

One tactic used in all swimming training from club squads to the Olympics is the concept of whole-part-whole: to develop the stroke, either to improve skills or strength, you break the stroke into parts. The simplest expression of this is arms only or legs only followed by the full stroke. This is repeated over different distances and whether an aerobic or anaerobic set, against different turn around or repeat times. This is finessed with drills, so taking on of the four competive strokes - frontcrawl backcrawl, breasstroke and butterfly - what might we see?

This morning's Master's set had the following drills: short doggie laddle, long doggie paddle, catchup, touchfloat and closed fist. Each was a 50m drill followed by 50m full stroke. Later we did some arms only sets over 100m against the clock. And we swam sme backstroke and breaststroke for slme variety before some short full strokes sprints on Frontcrawl and a swim down.

How might this translate into a training session or e-learning module?

To start with the module, like a set, would need to change every week, so that there is progression in the challenges set, the skills in technique to demonstrate and even the times to rest or turn around a swim.

There would need to be variety too, which typically means emphasis on a different stroke but inlcudes having a different coach, swimming in a different lane and having different swimmers in the lane with you.

I rarely see such variety or such progressive, long term, planned in progression in learning and development, while many e-learning modules are no better than the leaflet or linear video they replace - they are fixed.

Does this work?

How do you reversion content so that it gets progrossively more challenging at a pace that puts the individual learning just beyond being able to d the thing with ease? Effort matters, easy learning isn't learning, just as a stroll in the park isn't a training run.

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H810 Accessibility and equality

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Thursday, 6 Sep 2012, 14:55

Given the start of the Paralympic Games last night it is hardly surprising that disability is a topic or theme on TV, the radio and in the press. Even the Simpsons' satire yesterday evening - the one where the school is split into girls and boys and Liza dresses up as a boy and becomes the object of bullies - had a powerful message regarding equality. It should be about seeing the strength while not ignoring the 'weakness', but accommodating or compensating for it, that it is the lack of x, y or z that makes the disability more of an issue that it needs to be.

Is it just about money?

It took a Paralympian wheelchair basketball player to point out how countries that hadn't the provision of the richer economies had older, clunkier, heavier wheelchairs.

I watched a piece of theatre for deaf people by deaf people. It reminded me of comia del arte - highly physical and rumbustious. I hadn't the slightest clue what was going on, certainly no idea what was being said. Had I someone twlking it through how different would the experience have been.

How do the movies portray disability? From Richard III and Frankenstein, to Finding Nemo, Slum Dog Millionaire and Avatar. Even Dr Who where Darleks, and certainly Davros, are disabled beings in wheelchairs with a wheelie bin, plunger and egg- whisk for limbs.

It takes being ill, of confined to a bed or wheelchair to get some sense if it, or having a close relation, infant or elderly in a state, or phase of amelioration or deterioration to feel it personally. I broke a leg badly enough and far enough away from home to require amabulances and special flights, hospitalisation then a wheelchair. For some months in order to get into the garden I pulled myself about quite happily on a large wooden tea-tray. We knew it was temporary, indeed within six months I was riding a bike and walking with a stick and six months after that competing in the swimming pool and on the rugby pitch - wherein lies a stark difference, the disabled person is very likely to be set inspite or despite of treatment and how the disability came about, indeed their situation is likely to be more complex with medications, care, a deteriorating prognosis even.

There is mental illness and disability in the family too - depression, learning difficulties, aspergers and autism. I'd even dare to say that being exceptionally bright or that ridiculously isolating term 'gifted' in the case of my late father isolated him.

If we wish for inclusivity when will the Olympics and Paralympics play out simultaneously?

Perhaps at a club level I should suggest that once a year we do this - having an inclusive event in contrast to the other exclusive events we run or take part in.

As I reflect I need of course to bring it back to H810.

The Amateur Swimming Association (ASA) runs a workshop for coaches who work with disabled athletes - there is an online module too which I will sign up for. Annually we apply for a national award called Swim21 which includes an audit in relation to disabled swimmers - we ticked every box without question with qualified personal, watertime set aside, entry into internal and external galas and working with our local leisure providers but is this enough? If the bar isn't that high no wonder it is easy to get over.

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Learning and coaching lessons from the London 2012 Olympics

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Wednesday, 8 Oct 2014, 04:47

I've been wondering what lessons we can learn from the Olympics in relation to learning and success so was lighted to follow the interview with Dave Beresford the Team GB Cycling coach.

These are my notes with links. You can view again on BBC iPlayer and via Google I found the inteview being tweeted by various papers and Alastair Campbell.

I've been enjoying the TV vignettes with Colin Jackson too and the guy who does the slots on sports psychology.

Simplistic tasters that whet the appetite supported by the BBC Website and links that can provide more. Potential OU Support Links to local and regional clubs Prompts and tasters from The OU via Catherine Chambers in Linkedin to view some content on cycling and so perhaps take a sports science module.

Hero worship such as Dianne Lewis and Seb Coe

The legacy not just for sport, but self–evident proof that learning and hard work in sport can deliver, so hard work, application and knowledge can deliver at work and in the home, with your career, ambitions and family.

Interviewed by Garry Linneker on BBC Olympic Sport, David Brailsford of Team GB cycling on Wednesday 8th August spoke of his approach to seeking out the way to get the best performance from someone and how this could be applied to any sport, as well as work whether a lawyer or dentist.

  • a philosophy best that a person can be
  • the Olympic Park like a sports themed park

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-19182842

http://markgrantlondon.wordpress.com/2012/08/09/5-tips-leaders-can-apply-from-the-success-of-david-brailsford-performance-director-of-british-cycling/

http://www.thegca.co.uk/blog/?p=81

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New blog post

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Interested in swimming? Interested in being a swimming teacher or coach? What about water-polo? Once again I am blogging about my poolside/teaching experiences in my swim teach / swim coach blog.

The Welly Man

(Named thus because I also used to instruct sailing and took to wearing sailing wellies poolside. They keep you feet dry, unlike trainers and are more comfortable than flip-flops. I was nicknamed 'the welly-boot man' by the young swimmers).

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You don't learn to swim by reading a book ... An applied degree must therefore be situated in the workplace?

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 2 May 2014, 11:17

Too much theory without practice was described by the owner of a successful specialist engineering firm in Germany today as 'like trying to learn to swim from a book.'

Apprenticeship in Germany run for 3 1/2 years of which 8 months a year is practical. The remainder of the year they go to a special school. 'If you  only learn theory it is like learning swimming from reading a book so you need both.' Leonardo  Duritchich, Chief Technial Water, Sief Steiner Pianos.   The Today Programme, 27h36, Wednesday 17th  August.

I agree, though when it comes to swimming, there are some great books made all the better in electronic form. This is 'The Swim Drill Book.'

Putting into practice what you learn, learning construction rather than simply knowledge acquisition; I believe this to be the case with something like The OU Business School MBA, something I needed each time I started businesses in the 2980s and 1990s.
As a swimming coach it matters that you swam competitively and/or still swim. A flightless bird cannot teach a bird to fly. So engineers learn through doing, often from apprenticeship. Junior Doctors need to put in the hours, solicitors start as trainees, the list goes on. It is particularly the case in the TV business where after starting as a trainee producer I was happier with kit, shooting, editing and drafting scripts, learning my trade, something that an a degree had not prepared me for.

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How positive leadership spreads like a Mexican Wave

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Saturday, 8 Dec 2012, 00:01

How a ‘contagion of positive emotions’ from and of the right leader or teacher will greatly enhance the learning experience and project outcomes.

The problem is, you need to be there to get the vibe. I dare say parenting therefore has a huge impact on the developing child - nurtured or knackered?

But what does this say about the role of distance learning?

A bit, not a lot. Tutorials from time to time may pay dividends. We should stop being such e-learning purists and meet face to face when and where we can … at least online, if not in the flesh.

And before I go anywhere, thanks to someone for the link to this which I received in my daily maelstrom of Linked In forum threads, emails, comments and what not.

Advances in neuroscience may help us understand the internal mechanisms that enable some people to be effective leaders, and some not. Boyatzis (2011)

The leadership role is moving away from a “results-orientation” towards a relationship orientation. Boyatzis (2011)

People who feel inspired and supported give their best, are open to new ideas and have a more social orientation to others. Boyatzis (2011)

The difference between resonant and dissonance in relationships was tested, for example the difference between an inspired and engaging leader, compared to one who makes demands and sets goals.

While undergoing an MRI scan people were asked to recall specific experiences with resonant leaders and with dissonant leaders. When thinking about ‘resonant’ leaders there was significant activation of 14 regions of interest in the brain while with dissonant leaders there was significant activation of 6 and but deactivation in 11 regions. i.e. people are turned off by certain kinds of leadership. Boyatzis (2011)

The conclusion is that being concerned about one’s relationships may enable others to perform better and more innovatively– and lead to better results i.e. be an inspired, motivating leader, not a dictatorial or demanding one.

How therefore if running a course online does the course chair or a tutor engender these kind of feelings in their students?

The other lesson from this is to appreciate how quickly impressions of others get formed or the neural mechanisms involved.

First impressions count

They impact on how one person responds to another for some time to come. We are emotional beings, however much we’d like to control our behaviour.

The other idea is of ‘emotional contagion’ or ‘emotional arousal’ being picked up in the neural systems activate endocrine systems; that imitation and mimicry are important i.e. you cannot lead at arm’s-length – you have to be there, as must be your team, and by implication, where learning is involved, you students. Boyatzis (2011)

What you pick up in the presence of others is:

  • the context of an observed action or setting
  • the action
  • the intention of the other living being.

‘A sympathetic hemo-dynamic that creates the same ability for us to relate to another’s emotions and intention’ (Decety & Michalaks, 2010).

There are three implications of these observations Boyatzis (2011):

  1. the speed of activation
  2. the sequence of activation
  3. the endocrine/neural system interactions.

Our emotions are determining cognitive interpretation more than previously admitted.

Our unconscious emotional states arouse emotions in those with whom we interact before we or they know it. And it spreads from these interactions to others.

Research has suggested that negative emotions are stronger than positive emotions which may serve evolutionary functions but, paradoxically, it may limit learning. Boyatzis (2011)

i.e. where the teacher shows leadership that engenders a positive response the learning experience is increased (think of the fictional character played by Robin Williams in Dead Poet’s Society, think of Randy Pausch the late Carnegie Mellon Professor of Virtual reality) … whereas negative emotions.

From a student’s point of view if you have a teacher you do NOT like (or no one likes) this will have overly significant NEGATIVE impact on your learning experience.

So it matters WHO and HOW you are taught, not simply an interest or passion for a subject.

‘A contagion of positive emotions seems to arouse the Parasympathetic Nervous System, which stimulates adult neurogenesis (i.e. growth of new neurons) (Erickson et. al., 1998), a sense of well being, better immune system functioning, and cognitive, emotional, and perceptual openness’ (McEwen, 1998; Janig and Habler, 1999; Boyatzis, Jack, Cesaro, Passarelli, & Khawaja, 2010).

The sustainability of leadership effectiveness is directly a function of a person’s ability to adapt and activate neural plasticity. Boyatzis (2011)

The SNS (Sympathetic Nervous System) and PNS (Parasympathetic Nervous System ) are both needed for human functioning.

They each have an impact on neural plasticity.

Arousal affects the growth of the size and shape of our brain. Neurogenesis allows the human to build new neurons. The endocrines aroused in the PNS allow the immune system to function at its best to help preserve existing tissue (Dickerson and Kemeny, 2004).

I FOUND THIS PROFOUND

Leaders bear the primary responsibility for knowing what they are feeling and therefore, managing the ‘contagion’ that they infect in others.

(Is a disease metaphor and its negative connotations the appropriate metaphor to use here?)

It requires a heightened emotional self-awareness.

This means having techniques to notice the feelings, label what they are and then signal yourself that you should do something to change your mood and state.

Merely saying to yourself that you will “put on a happy face” does not hide the fast and unconscious transmission of your real feelings to others around you.

Leaders should be coaches in helping to motivate and inspire those around them (Boyatzis, Smith & Blaize, 2006).

But not any old form of coaching will help.

Coaching others with compassion, that is, toward the Positive Emotional Attractor, appears to activate neural systems that help a person open themselves to new possibilities– to learn and adapt. Meanwhile, the more typical coaching of others to change in imposed ways (i.e., trying to get them to conform to the views of the boss) may create an arousal of the SNS and puts the person in a defensive posture. This moves a person toward the Negative Emotional Attractor and to being more closed to possibilities.

What does say about parenting?

The role or the patriarch or matriarch in the family? And whilst your father may be an inspiring leader at the office, what if he is a nit-picking bore and a negative grudge when he comes home?

REFERENCE

Boyatzis, R. (2011) Neuroscience and Leadership: The Promise of Insights Leadership | January / February 2011

Boyatzis, R.E., Smith, M. and Blaize, N. (2006) “Developing sustainable leaders through coaching and compassion, Academy of Management Journal on Learning and Education. 5(1): 8-24.

Boyatzis, R. E., Jack, A., Cesaro, R., Passarelli, A. & Khawaja, M. (2010). Coaching with Compassion: An fMRI Study of Coaching to the Positive or Negative Emotional Attractor. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, Montreal.

Decety, J. & Michalska, K.J. (2010). Neurodevelopmental change in circuits underlying empathy and sympathy from childhood to adulthood. Developmental Science. 13: 6, 886-899.

Dickerson, S.S. & Kemeny, M.E. (2004). Acute stressors and cortisol responses: A theoretical integration and synthesis of laboratory research. Psychological Bulletin.130(3): 355-391.

Janig, W. & Habler, H-J. (1999). Organization of the autonomic nervous system: Structure and function. In O. Appendzeller (ed.). Handbook of Clinical Neurology: The Autonomic Nervous System: Part I: Normal Function, 74: 1-52.

McEwen, B. S. (1998). Protective and damaging effects of stress mediators. New England Journal of Medicine. 338: 171-179.

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M-Learning?

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Saturday, 19 Feb 2011, 16:08

Armed with a Kindle with the Swim Drills book loaded I was poolside teaching and coaching swimmers for three hours.

For the last year I have run programmes based on drills in 'The Swim Drills Book' and have relied on lesson plans and sometimes laminated print outs.

Today I took the Kindle

Swim%20Drill%20Book%20Dead%20Swimmer%20GRAB.JPG


Never before have I found the swimmers so attentive, coming close to the side of the pool to look at the pictures.

Here is a great drill to develop streamlining

DSC00841.JPG

They start in what we call 'Dead Swimmer' then straighten up, arms first, then legs into the 'streamline position.' They then kick off, add a few strokes and continue up the pool.

They got, far quicker than my efforts to demonstrate and talk them through.

Simple.

The pictures say it all.

Is this mobile learning?

Whatever it is, this works.

Next step to blog about in my Swim Coach website www.thewellyman.wordpress.com.

We bought a dozen copies of the Swim Book.

Perhaps we need a dozen Kindles.

Could we have waterproof versions?

And perhaps A4 clipboard in size?

With a wireless link to a poolside whiteboard.

Better still, an LCD screen on the bottom of the pool!

REFERENCE

The%20Swimming%20Drill%20Book%20GRAB.JPG

Guzman, R (2007) The Swim Drills Book

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PDP as an ascending thermal. Come glide with me!

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 28 Sep 2012, 12:28

Love this. My PDP thermal. It works.

PDP Cycle Close Up

It works because everything hangs onto the concept without being shoe-horned.

I want to run with is as my philosophy for PDP and do someting whizzy with it as a video, animation, conference opener or something. I'd like to think it could capture peoples' imaginations, which is just what you want if you are going to motivate them to be the best they can be, so that their team can be the best they can be ... and in turn the business can be the best that it can be too.

If this is clearer try it in the long-shot.

PDP in situ

The upwards rotation, like a glider riding a thermal, is akin to a person's PDP ascendency.

What drives this, the enery as it were, is their motivation.

Tap into this and everything else will follow.

Though the timings for PDP to occur, or for self-assessment and needs analysis should be varied and applied as required, rather than becoming onorous and regular, it should nonetheless happen. This is in effect when our 'glide' banks and turns (yaws?). If following a glider in action then there varied loop/cycle sizes would be easily accommodate within the idea.

Around this mistral I have added various standard e-learning tools, which I would rank in importance. Such ranking would/will vary by person, by platform, by subject matter, but I'm certain that blogging and forums are up there as far more important than anything else in terms of engagement, collaboration and effectiveness.

BloggingAs you can see I've put in:

  • Forums
  • Eportfolios
  • Wikis

I've wrapped 'motivation' around the edges like those 'go faster' agitation marks you use in cartoons. I'll redraw it all now that I have some time to beautify and develop it further.

Around each of the above e-learning tools there are micro-loops (loop the loops even), where I've added (all colour coded by the way), things such as reflect, skill, communication, technology, reseach, analyse and so on.

Collaboration and communication are ever present as continual themes (or thermals) currents that should be ever present.

What else?

PDP%20thermal%20Midshot%20Cycles.JPG

  • Share
  • Lead
  • Inform
  • Critique
  • Assessment

I can work with the logic, keep it simple, and adjust accordingly.

Podcasts are a form of blogging, whether audio or video, as well as resources/assets in their own right.

Skype, email, TXT, Messaging ... and even 'face-to-face' communication (what's that?!) have been included.

This, in an image, is what I do.

PDP%20thermal%20Motivation.JPG

Files of research and work, days of debate and deliberation, playing around with ideas then the pressure to sum it as succinctly as possible.

This, turned into animation, or video ... i.e. rich media, is what I do to.

I hear Michael Nyman. He's permited me to use his muix before. It has pace, it is querky and challenging, and exciting ... and repetive, and driven and motivating.

And for a voice?

  • Female
  • On verra.

No one's offered me a budget yet.

£40k for a ten minute jaw-dropping conference opening extravaganza.

£500 and you get me in front of Sony Cybershot stills camera, my son's collection of Sharpies in one hand, a sheet of wall-paper backing paper taped to the kitchen door.

 

 

 

 

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Where we'll be in 2025 from the perspective of someone in 1975

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Sunday, 9 Jan 2011, 09:02

For the introduction of my H808 ECA I've visualised a Movie Poster.

Man 2025 from 1975 Sunday Colour Supplement

 

This comes from a Sunday Newspaper, in 1975.

This image, along with some shots of the diary went into a blog in 2003. In 2006 I tried to establish which paper this image came from and failed. You'd imagine something right wing like the Sunday Telegraph, though it is more like to have been the Observer, or even the Radio Times? Strikingly there was no view taken on this pose looking for all intense and purposes like one of Hitler's Aryan few. The thinking behind it was that by 2025 we'd all be mixed raced, bald (for no apparent reason) and semi-naked due to our ability to control the climate.

The only reason I chose this as my personal movie poster for now is a desire to reconnect to my youth and a sense that I had a future, another 14 years at least! I wouldn't mind getting fit again too, overweight at 90kg and doing no exercise for several years has me far, far, far from this absurd image. Though age 19, with hair, this was me courtesy of swimming every day for an hour or more and sailing/windsurfing in the summer and skiing in the winter. Heady days.

Politically I should mention here that I swing between green, yellow, blue and red ... ocasionally even purple. I blend my vote too, rarely voting for the same lot between local and national elections and often preferring the independent choice. At uni I was a member of both the Conservative and the Labour parties sad

Who cares? I do. I can keep them all at arms length, especially the two parties that keep asking me to stand ... oh yes! My busy body considered an asset in local refuse collection, building, transport and various pollution issues. I should keep my mouth shut, but as you can see, I don't and it isn't difficult to point content like this (editted) to a person that matters.

For the conclusion I've visualised a Film Review.

I've also done a cartoon of one of the course authors as a weightlifter with the words RESEARCH on one end of the bar and the word PRACTICE on the other; the idea being that you get mentally fit by doing a work out that balances research and practice.

Where I come unstuck is with the PDP matrix.

 

1%20Your%20PDP%20pan%20for%20H808ECA.JPG
From Drop Box

 

I look at this and I see a train station message board on some concourse such as Crewe with few destinations of interest. I'll have to work on this.

The least  I want is the Message Board at St. Pancras International with Paris, Lille and Brussels written up, though my most inspired train message board will always be Gar du Nord, Paris. As a teenage my jaw always dropped to see destinations like Berlin, Moscow and Turin, where across the channel pre Eurotunnel you were supposed to get excited about Ore, Doncaster and Birmigham International sad

Any ideas? Perhaps if I visualised it as an Advent Calender? Or a box of chocolates (life, is after all, life a box of chocolates according to Forrest Gump).

Ideas on a plate please.

P.S. A reminder to myself to dig out a collection of scrapbooks from 1987-88 when I was at London's, School of Communication Arts and perhaps a reminder to start doing this again. Or do I? I'm getting into the habit of photographing things that catch my eye, uploading, cropping and fixing, then tagging and putting them online. Perhaps I'm a candidate after all for the e-diary, a record of everything, all day.

 

 

 

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Design Museum

E-portfolios for young people ...

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Monday, 29 Aug 2011, 16:17

School-leavers will have an electronic portfolio showing their achievements and best work, giving a clearer insight into what they can do in the workplace (DfES, 2005, p 12).

Without the support of adults this is futile. Too often technology tries to eliminate the need for relationships for things to happen. Sometimes the technology is an attempt to replace people with things, with stuff, with systems.

An e-portfolio won't say well-done; an e-portfolio will no identify strengths and weaknesses and with care offer positive feedback; an e-portfolio might use up time, but it doesn't give of its time ...

Who historically has known what a person can achieve? Their teacher, parent, or grand-parents, a close friend or partner?

What do e-portfolios lack?

A heart, a head and a hug.

In the early 1990s something called 'The Choices Card' was launched across the North East of England by the now defnct Tyneside Tec. This creidt card and chip held a basic CV, had training credits on it and was meant to be a young person's passport between school, training and/or a job.

This was an e-portfolio in microcosm. The most important component of it was the person, the adviser who took the 'candidate' through the process.

There are plenty of people in the country, many of whom will have more sense and achieve greater 'stickiness' then a collection of amorphous software.

It is tool. A clever too. An engaging tool. A valuable tool. And a resource. And a gateway. But it is about a person and should be applied through engagement with the right 'other' people. If guided alone through social networking sites what kind of decisions will be taken?

We'll see. Because this is what will happen.

It's easy enough to be on Facebook while doing homework, to be on Facebook while completing a job application or writing a CV. Who are the influencers here?

We'll see.

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