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H800 WK17 Computer Lab to iPad for e-learning

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Wednesday, 17 Oct 2012, 04:30

Simply to offer a different insight while acknowledging the above, I was, in 1983, introduced to the wonders of the University Computer Lab.

'Back then' this wasn't an elective, but rather signing up to some additional, extra-curricular training.

It did not appeal one bit; I could imagine to some degree where it was going and its necessity in one of my options (remote sensing from space), but to achieve anything (I am neither computer literate or mechanically minded), it struck me, as was the case, that your required a certain mindset (that of an engineer or mathematician). Because it was in little demand, not networked, bespoke to a project and housed in one place it was akin to joining the stamp club and about as exciting. It was however 'on request,' rather than compulsory and could with ease be ignored.

I wonder if a more laissez-faire approach would work?

More of an internal market in an organisation where choices are offered to individuals so that the decission making could be more bottom up than top down? i.e. you have a budget, you pick the kit you'd like, the software you need rather than being prescribed a piece of kit and software and obliged to learn it.

I imagine the moment I can afford to buy a Mac I'll do so.

The simplest analogy would be is that I feel I've been told I have to use a Rotring pen and a ruler, but I'd prefer to use a soft HB6 pencil and a pad of cartridge paper. The end result, the task or peice of communication I have to deliver will be the same, I just get there 'my way,' rather than 'your way'.

My university experience from the 1980s, to that as student and now insider thirty years on at the OU is different, however, invited to meet a group of Associate Lecturers yesterday to have my mind picked regarding web-conferencing, Elluminate and synchronous learning in general, I was struct not by how things have changed, but how what matters hasn't changed at all - there are educators who are fascinate by and passionate about what they do.

There is a desire to do the best by their students and to get their heads around what tools could be used to improve or enhance this experience. Even speaking with my 85 year old father-in-law, a former prof who still 'teaches' I am struck by this vocational zeal, which is shared whether by email and Skype, by snailmail or a tutorial, collaboration on a book, or giving a talk (still) at a summer school.

The lesson I have learnt therefore is never to let the technology get in the way of this experience, that between educator and student, the knowledgeable and the less knowledgeable, playing on this inhate human desire to share our experience and knowledge whatever that might be.

Increasingly, when discussing the merits of kit or software, I return to this theme, that people have not changed and that the natural relationships that form between people in markets, in villages, in communities, is what we crave and repeatedly recreate online in a multitude of ways.

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New blog post

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Sunday, 4 Sept 2011, 12:49
(69252) Frauke Constable should be featured as a student blogger on OU Platform. http://bieni64.wordpress.com/ Sean%252520Brady.jpg also Sean Brady
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ELizabeth 1st to e-learning - four centuries on are we trying to treat everyone like a little princess?

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Monday, 29 Aug 2011, 09:04

The view I have formed during the course of MAODE and now that I am immersed in the perfect pool for e-learning I find that the vastness, and the complexity of the issues, from learning design, to the technology, from course materials to access, the whole gamut of what should or could be done, has been done, rightly or wrongly, and how we respond to current changes (student funding, Internet, global demand for higher education/life-long learning to the highest level) boils down to understanding people.

How and why do people learn?

How is this best achieved?

Always see it, whatever the scale (and there are student cohorts in their thousands on some OU modules), from the perspective of one person and their unique and shifting circumstances, abilities, weaknesses, desires, hopes, technical ability, financial and family situation, geographical location, employment status, mental and health well-being.

It still strikes me that the basic student profile is so limiting in what we are asked to provide, and yet I suspect a few clicks on a drop-down box does influence where we are placed. I know that being on my third and final module is a key reason to allocate me to one group over another, that the desire for this mix of those new to the course and those with more experience is deliberate.

It may suite the OU to have in a group of 16 a split three ways between those on their first, second or third module. Selfishly, it would suit me to be in a tutor group of 'module threes'. We are more alike because of our shared experienced; as like minds we would achieve more. Indeed, I wonder if the needs especially of those on their first module would be better catered for?

A crude marker that assumes mistakenly something about this individuals character and disposition.

I appreciate too, on the other hand, that it could be invasive to go through a heftier profiling process, however, I think such effort would be rewarded and probably show up as improved retention as people's individual circumstances, whether trivial or massive, would be, to some degree at least, accommodated.

An idealist?

Princesses Elizabeth had, in the 16th century, one-to-one tuition, specialists, the best in their field. What she'd learnt dicated by others, preparing her from an early age for what might be expected of her. Four centuries later can something like this not be made possible for many more? All it takes is for someone who knows stuff to spend time with someone who does not.

Above I suggest we need to think harder about the student, as a person, in all their glorious uniqueness.

Perhaps I am saying there are two people in this relationship and it is this failure to respect the importance of them both that is often not met when technology is put between them, not to make this ideal learning relationship possible, but to make any learning at all possible.

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H800 WK17

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I interviewed our Dean, Prof. James Fleck a couple of weeks ago (soon to appear on the Association of MBAs website as it was featured at their 2011 Conference).

Here he tells a story of what he calls 'distance' learning (used negatively); it is exactly what we saw in this Kansas University video; they were 'distant' said Prof. Fleck, because he couldn't make out the colour of the person's top in the back row. He compared this to what he said the Faculty of Business and Law achieves through 'nearness' or 'closeness' learning, using platforms such as this, web-conferences too, to support learning. The 'd' word has been banned because of its negative connotations, which include the idea that students have little contact with tutors or fellow students, which in most cases is never the situation as there are regular tutor meetings and other get-togethers. I had to be put right on this score (there are 330 regional centres globally).

In its blended form using a laptop or ipad during a lecture, to Twitter on topic to colleagues, or to see fullscreen or closeups of what the lecturer is delivering live, may enhance the experience, even bring people closer? JISC 2011 this year was attended by nearly 400 on Twitter watching and listening online with under 150 in the lecture hall.

The technology should enable, enhance and support, never to the exclusion of people how don't have the kit or reliable access. Talking of which, I interviewed an Visiting International Fellow from Ghana for the Faculty and couldn't help but ask a question relating to our MAODE; he gave permission to use this so I ought to offer it somewhere. This was on technolgy and the way mobile phones have 70% penetration in Ghana and are therefore crucial to overcome a list of other problems offering a real way forward to be able to exploit learning content, in this case Open Resources for training Civil Servants to MBA level.

And what I take from this?

The best lessons I ever had were from my grandfather; sitting with him learning about his experiences as a machine-gunner and then a fighter pilot in the RFC then taking him to the Imperial War Museum where they welcomed him like Royalty and even had a machine gun out for him! In a moment this 95 year old was crouched behind the thing ... anyway, the point it, one-to-one and face-to-face, an expert passing on knowledge to someone who is motivated is the ideal; how technology can facilitate a component of this is what appeals to me, playing on what we do best as humans in the anthropological sense.

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Social Media Matters for communications and education

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Monday, 29 Aug 2011, 08:21
I have drifted over to my mind bursts - just Google it and take your pick. I have in effect for the last three months been doing a second module in parallel while also starting a new job. One naturally feeds into the other. Applied learning works. There is no formal course of action; though there is naturally a significant amoint of activity; I like to scramble up any new learning curve, especially this one because it fascinates me. I've always been a natural networker, not working the crowd, but genuinely enjoying the company of people, listening to their ideas, woes, beliefs, their enthusiams too. If something is being said about Social Media I am reading about it online, joining groups on it (join me in Linkedin), and getting books on it- everyone an e-book with each one treated as if it belongs to a compulsory reading list. Ask about these, or spin through this blog; in most cases I start the entry with a picture of the book. I've reviewed them too which amuses me becuase by Googling my name several of this reviews are top ranked. (69133)
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Applied Learning

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 2 May 2014, 11:18

Odd how I can treat a TMA like an essay, research it to death and build towards an essay crisis. Having to write the TMA equivalent, a strategy paper on Social Media, I find I am a couple of days ahead with the first draft written, expectations of a meeting where expert colleagues will have input before finalising and presenting in a week.

Applied learning, or practice-based learning ... action learning, they're all the same idea that attracts a good deal of interest; it increasingly makes sense for people, especially if they are settled in a position that they enjoy and need, to study as the work, the learning occuring alongside what they do, rather than separetely from it.

In some respects this is the immersive learning that game-like learning environments are supposed to re-created; but why do that when you can have the real thing?

I had thought of creating it as a wiki, password protected for contributing stakeholders. As long as we're on the same wavelength from experience of doing this in the MAODE I'd trust the end result to be better as a result, the equivalent of lifting something from the 70% mark towards 85% and beyond.

Blogging here My Mind Bursts more than here, where the audiences have far more choice and haven't the focus of hear of learning with the OU.

Its been an interesting environment to hone some more advanced blogging habits and skills, not simply the generation of regular content, but how it is linked, where it is linked and the important of tags which I've used simply to identify content, but of course of seach engine optimisation purposes too.

If you have a moment and can put the right hat on, perhaps you're an Open University Faculty of Business and Law student anyway, then do please visit our website as I will be listening to all comers on valuable enhancements we can make here.

To 'blogify' is my mission.

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Social Media – Listen for long enough then join in and draw your own conclusions

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 2 Nov 2012, 18:06

What%2520is%2520history%2520SNIP.JPG

The historian E.H.Carr said,’Read bout a period until you can hear its people speak.’

It’s what took me to Oxford to read Modern History and what for some periods in history inspired me to attempt screenplays on the events in the year 1066 … and 850 years later on the Western Front. It’s the quote that impressed Bill Clinton enough to quote it in his autobiography. It suggests, short of being their, you must immerse yourself in a subject in order to understand it, in order to be able to speak its language.

‘Research a subject until the research reveals the narrative’.

Sounds like an excuse for there being no assessment, but perhaps reflects how we pick things up through ‘doing’.

I caught this on Radio 4, Saturday 9.00am, 9 days ago? I’d reference it if I could.


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New blog post

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Wednesday, 31 Aug 2011, 03:46

Social Media Mouth

Helping people succeed online

 

(68199)

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A global perspective on digital change

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Monday, 29 Aug 2011, 10:18
A global perspective on digital change http://www.idealog.com/blog/
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Tips on getting the most out of Linked In

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Sunday, 26 Feb 2012, 05:43

Websites: Your “Link” to Future Opportunities Posted on May 29, 2011 by Wayne

Before I get to this week’s tip, I want to let you know about a couple opportunities for those of you in the Milwaukee area to catch me in action. On Tuesday morning, May 31st, I will be a guest on The Morning Blend television show on Channel 4 at 9:00 a.m. I plan to critique the LinkedIn profiles of the hosts and share some LinkedIn tips.

Should be fun.

In case you forget to set your DVR, you can catch the replay on their website.

Then at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, June 1st, I will be doing a book talk/signing at the Next Chapter Bookshop in Mequon.

I look forward to sharing some of my latest LinkedIn tips as well as the details of my book-writing journey. Grab a friend and come on over to the book store.

This week’s tip is about using one of the most unique but underutilized sections on your profile to generate not only interest and increased credibility but business leads.

In the Websites section of your profile, you can enter three well-described website links.

This will encourage people to go directly from your LinkedIn profile to some other place on the Internet. It is amazing to see how many people either don’t use this section at all or list fewer than three websites.

Here is all you need to know about how to strategically use this critical part of your profile.

Websites:  Your “Link” to Future Opportunities

It is located in the all-important top box (blue summary section) of your profile. You can enter up to three separate URL addresses (Use them all!). You don’t have to include your LinkedIn URL as one of the entries. You can use up to 26 characters to describe these entries.

Putting these on your profile provides links to other sites, which helps you move up on not only a LinkedIn search but a Google search as well. That is the simple part. But then you need to decide what strategic places on the web you would like people to go to and do something because they were encouraged to click this link.

I also highly recommend as a best practice that you refer to these links in your Summary section and your Experience section.

If people see these links several times, they will be more likely to click them and move to some type of action.

Here are some examples:

“Be sure to sign up for our email newsletter by clicking the ‘Sign up for our email’ link in the Website section above” or “You can get a copy of our industry trends white paper by clicking ‘Real Estate White Paper’ in the Website section above.”

Here are a few ideas for using these important links:

The home page of your company website. Of course, this should be first. (Change description from “My Company” to something more descriptive, like your company name or tag line) Your company’s e-mail signup page on your website. This is a good way to build your database.

Any articles, customer testimonials, case studies, and/or white papers that are on your company website.

The LinkedIn profile is all about showing your expertise. This is a great way to show it. Signup for an upcoming company sponsored event.

Videos that you have posted on your company website, other websites or YouTube showing products, presentations, testimonials.

Video is really hot and getting hotter.

Get your Flip Camera and get going. People love seeing and hearing other people. Link to either a completed survey of industry matters or an ongoing survey for which you need more opinions. People love data and being a part of the data group. Websites of related organizations, associations, industry groups.

You can promote your involvement and at the same time help that group as well.

Your blog.

If you are writing content that is important to some of your Linkedin audience, this is really a “power tool” in your journey to be the most credible person in your space. Your Facebook, MySpace, Flickr or other social media accounts. This is great as long as you continue to follow a similar professional level of content and feel. Don’t waste one of your slots with your Twitter account. There is a separate spot for that just below this section. The website of your favorite charitable organization. This shows people what you are interested in and at the same time helps promote a group you really care about.

One additional tip.

Once you have figured out the best websites/pages to link people to, consider using a URL shortener (Budurl, bitly, tinyurl, etc.) so you can count the number of times that someone actually follows the link. This allows you to tell whether it is working or ...

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From diary to blog

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Monday, 28 May 2012, 16:58

I am one of those people who began a diary age 13 and kept it up pretty much for 16 years ... Picking up blogging in 1999 was a natural step used as much to paste in the more memorable events of those 16 years.

 

The format changed, from five year diary, to hardbook notebooks, to letters to my fiance and mercifully the diary came to an abrupt halt with marriage (going to be bed was no longer a time to take out the pen).

 

I'm glad I decided to catch-up with the habit when the children were born, so was ready in 1996 and 1998 to blog. And so I blog for another decade.

 

But was this a reflective diary?

 

At times it was simply filling the page (first a few lines in one of those Five Year Diary with a lock), then a minimum per day of a page of A4 in a hardback notebook ... though for a while as much as I cared to write (e.g. September 1977 or 78 fills an entire arch-lever file).

 

But was it reflective?


Looking back at these entries (very rare), it is depressing to read about issues and problems that I never resolved, or ambitions that I couldn't or didn't fulfil. Perhaps by reading back regularly these diaries would have had reflective, life-adjusting qualities? Rather than the prayers of a godless teenager who was sent to boarding school age 7, escaped for 2 years for A'levels to a day school, then returning to the boarding environment of univeristy.

 

Was my diary a companion who could only listen?


This is all brought up as a result of reading about the Reflective Diary as a tool for students to consider what they are trying to learn and if they are succeeding. I could say that from a purist's point of view this sullies the term 'diary'; I can imagine how dull it would have been for Alan Clarke, Anne Frank or Pepys to have written in such a way (let alone Henry Miller or Anais Nin). But this misses the point, a reflective diary is a tool, a task, like the weekly (or fortnightly) essay.

 

This from Burgess (2009)


Reflective diaries

 

There are many ways of keeping these.

 

* Make a note of something you found interesting in the lecture/seminar.

* Why was it interesting?

* How does it connect with your own life/practice experience?

* How might this inform your practice as a social worker

* How might users benefit from your learning?

* How might your learning add to your understanding of 'good' practice

 

I should look through decades of diaries, some 1.6 million words of it online, and see if I am guilty of an reflection of this nature. I say 'guilty' as I would have felt that writing in such a way in my diary (it would have had to be in a separate book) would have sullied the format, a bit like using play acting for education, rather than just for entertainment or writing a lyric for a song that taught safe sex. I would resist the idea of 'education' impinging on this side of my existence.

 

Are we not living in a world though where the barriers between work and home, school and home, colleagues and friends is breaking down?

 

Where in the same breath in a social networking site you can flip between friends, families, colleagues or fellow students?

 

Is such an environment like the population of your ideal village?

 

By Burgess with material adapted from the SAPHE Project (Self Assessment in Professional and Higher Education Project) Burgess, H (n.d.)

 

Self and Peer Assessment (online), The Higher Education Academy: Social Work and Social Policy (SWAP).

from: http://sorubank.ege.edu.tr/~bouo/DLUE/Chapter-08/Chapter-8-makaleler/Assessment%202_%20Self%20and%20peer%20assessment.htm (accessed 6 August 2010). Tags: assessment learning blog self-assessment burgess reflective diary

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Time for social media

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Sunday, 5 June 2011, 09:32
Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations

From The Times Education Supplement April 2008

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=401300

'Web 2.0 has become a warm and dark space for people with too much time and too few ideas.'

I disagree; we all have the same amount of time we simply borrow it from elsewhere.

'Older citizens, the poor, the illiterate and the socially excluded are invisible in Shirky's "everybody". Once more, the US, and occasionally the UK, is "the world" in the world wide web. The hypothesis is clear: the internet/web/Web 2.0 changed "everything". The question remains: for whom?'

Reviewer : Tara Brabazon is professor of media studies, University of Brighton.

The same criticisms can be made of Marc Prensky and all his unsubstantiated twaddle about 'Digital Natives'.

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The Cultural Web

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http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newSTR_90.htm
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Student : What's in a word?

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Sunday, 26 Feb 2012, 06:19

A subtle shift.

Perhaps we'll come one day to consider the word 'student' derogatory - why?

Because it's a put-down that places the educator at a higher level.

We're in it together, learning always and often playing dual roles as learners and the learned.

This is the equalizer with social media learning/education.

We're all in it together, always were ... always are.

So good-bye to the 'B' arc.

Douglas Adams

Gatekeepers serve no purpose and are easily and immediately ignored.

I'll expand on this in any way you wish:

  • Debate
  • Broadcast
  • Print
  • Down the pub

I'm an enabler, keen to bring the best out of others, I am after all (or was) a professional coach of elite swimmers.

 

 

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Page views going backwards

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As an avid blogger (27th September 1999).

I monitor basic stuff like page views.

Why therefore am I popping up here to query why my page views on this platform have started to go backwards?

Rest assured to the very few who take blogging here seriously that I will find out what is going on.

Screwball

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Blogging works – you too should keep a diary. You can always go private.

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Tuesday, 20 Mar 2012, 16:10

Blogging works – you too should keep a diary.

Don't think its anything new, this one dates to the 16th century. Lady Anne Clifford would know how to build a website and keep a blog. She did.

DSC00800.JPG

You can always go private.

Edit, then publish later. Or password protect so only a few get to read.

To give you confidence.

To become emboldened.

Start small. 50 years before Twitter there was the Five Year Diary. This is mine. I think the entries here are around 140 character.

DSC00375.JPG

‘Maketh up a quote at ye beginning of thy book; it will make people think thou art clever.’

Christopher Marlowe ‘The Obscure Tragedie’ Act II, Scene ii.

The following comes from a seminal book on diary keeping by Tristine Rainer.

Here are some key thoughts:

Some of this thinking can be brought up to date in the context of keeping a diary online; the essential principals remain the same.

A dairy is many things:

‘Everything and anything goes. You cannot do it wrong. There are no mistakes. At any time you can change your point of view, your style, your book, the pen you write with, the direction you write on the pages, the language in which you write, the subjects you include, or the audience you write to. You can misspell, write ungrammatically, enter incorrect dates, exaggerate, curse, pray, write poetically, eloquently, angrily, lovingly. You can past in photographs, newspaper clippings, cancelled checks, letters, quotes, drawings, doodles, dried flowers, business cards, or labels. You can write on lined paper or blank paper, violet paper or yellow, expensive bond or newsprint.’

Tristine Rainer, ‘The New Diary’ 1976.

Is this so different to blogging 25 years on?

Not at all. I go with the view of Reconstruction 6.4 that a blog is like paper, as versatile, but online.

Think about. I have and academic 'papers' have been written on the theme.

‘Flow, spontaneity and intuition are the key words. You don’t have to plan what you are going to do. You discover what you have done once you have set it down.’Tristine Rainer.

Keep it all in one place

‘When the dreams like next to the fantasies, and political thoughts next to personal complaints, they all seem to learn from each other.’

  • This works for blogging:
  • Write Spontaneously
  • Write quickly
  • This is so that you don’t know what will come next.
  • How the unexpected can happen.
  • Surprise yourself.
  • Write Honestly

Be open about what you really feel.

Few diaries actually lie to themselves in a dairy, but many out of shyness with themselves avoid writing about the most intimate aspects of a situation.

Write Deeply

Anais Nin, disappointed with her childhood diaries, developed the practice of sitting quietly for a few minutes before beginning to write. She would close her eyes and allow the most important incident or feeling of the day or of the period of time since she last wrote to surface in her mind.

That incident or feeling became her first sentence.

Write Correctly

  • Expressive language is not a science.
  • There are no rules.
  • You are writing for yourself, so self-expression is the key.
  • Test the range of your natural voice – it will develop.
  • Errors are part of the form of the diary, as they are part of life.

Blogging for Dummies claims this thinking for itself, treating the ideas of others like a tumble-dryer of ideas from which you can pick willy-nilly.

Choose your audience Your best audience is your future self.

In ten years time you won’t remember the situation unless you capture all its sensual vitality now.

My frustration is with the new comers jumping on the blogging bandwagon professing to know all about social media (including blogging). They don't unless they have done it; I have. I do.

Value contradictions

In time they will develop towards a larger truth; leave them in.

‘Some diarists find when they go several weeks without writing they begin to feel off balance and take it as a signal that they are avoiding the inner self.’

Those of us who keep a diary regularly are stuck with it; whether it appears online, and which bits of appear online is another matter.

‘We taught the diary as an exercise in creative will; as an exercise in synthesis; as a means to create a world according to our wishes, not those of others; as a means of creating the self, of giving birth to ourselves.’

Anais Nin, December 1976.

There’s more to follow from Tristine Rainer on basic diary devices and special techniques.

The Marlowe quote is John O’Farrel’s invention and appears in ‘I blame the scapegoats.’ A diary cannot be ghost written, I’m sure some blogs.

A corporate blog isn'nt a blog it's a online brochure.

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Handy stuff on multiple choice questions

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Sunday, 5 June 2011, 01:08

Guidelines for Multichoice Questions

Tech Weekly from the Guardian

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On keeping a diary online

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Tuesday, 20 Mar 2012, 16:17

Anais%2520Nin%2520SNIP.JPG

‘When people ask me how to keep a Diary, I refer them to Ira Progoff's Intensive Journal [method]....One cannot help being amazed by what emerges from this skilled inner journey. All the elements we attribute to the poet, the artist, become available to everyone, to all levels of society.’

Anais Nin

  • How to start your diary
  • In ‘The New Diary’ Tristine recommends that you:
  • Begin with a self-portrait
  • Begin with a period
  • Begin with today

Each time I come back to a blog after an absence of weeks, months or years I approach it in one of these ways: I assess who I am, go over the previous period when I’ve been away from the diary, and count these musings as my first entry.

From Ira Progoff’s A Journal Workshop seven useful techniques for diary writing are offered:

  1. List or Period Log
  2. Portrait or Life History Log
  3. Map of consciousness (Recapitulations and rememberings)
  4. Stepping Stones/Scenes from our lives
  5. Twilight Imagery Log
  6. Altered point of view
  7. Unsent letter
  8. Dialogue Dimension


Then read a few inspiring blogs from fellow OU students such as Rosie Rushton-Stone.

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H800 WK16 Blogging by numbers

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 3 June 2011, 05:30

It takes time ... a few lines every day. If building readers is what motivates you is: read many other blogs to get a feel for what you like and loathe; comment in other people's blogs and then start to write your own blog splitting your time equally between reading, commenting and blogging.

There are millions of blogs out there, getting noticed and then having something remarkable to say every day (no one can achieve that) is the goal.

I can offer tips galore, but mostly it is self-discovery and patience. It has taken over a year for my www.mindbursts.com blog to get from 2 visits a day to the heady heights of 25! And I am working hard at it.

For someone who gets 1,000,000 views a day look at Andrew Sullivan's 'The Daily Dish.'

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Spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Thursday, 2 June 2011, 16:50

You should read this while watching the Monty Python Spam sketch set to Lego animation.

Is there a difference between nuasance spam and illegal spam?

Rather like between fly-tipping and dropping litter?

Is it simply a matter of scale ... And being caught in an ocean of digital activity?

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MBA Blogger for the Open University Business School?

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Sunday, 4 Sept 2011, 12:46
Sean%252520Brady.jpg

Sean Brady

Management Tip of the Day

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What generation are you? I was brought up with a remote control for the telly; I must be different

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Wednesday, 1 June 2011, 21:14

Prensky claimed in 2001 that computer use had changed children's brains. So quick? I thought evolution took longer than a week. They sliced Einstein's brain up and found that despite a lifetime of brilliance it was no different to any other lump of grey matter. Prensky could have learnt this from a primer on neuroscience.

This scarmonger had only one goal, to have yet another generation of tired and receptive teachers nod in agreement and blame kit they didn't understand or couldn't use and then the kids themselves. Nonsense. Is it really likely that 'our students' brains have physically changed - and are different from ours?'

Selwyn's 2008 research concludes that Prensky's Generation is no more homogenous than any other, with ample variation in attitudes and exposure to technologies and that in some instances, as in Belgium 'internet use often clashes with rather than complements students progress.'

Don't you find that face-to-face conversations with like minds or planning out an essay on sheets of paper in a quiet room is more effective than having all this yammering and incesant twittering going on around you?

Permalink 7 comments (latest comment by Wren Tyler, Sunday, 5 June 2011, 13:12)
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MBAdventures ... A blog

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Thursday, 2 June 2011, 10:19

MBAdventures

I' m interested in all blogs, especially those kept by MBA students. Here's one from Harvard Business School. She seems to spend her life globetrotting; nothing like te flexible approach to work!

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New blog post

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 16 May 2014, 05:55

Rhona Sharpe's Blog

Started in 2011. No longer available. Go figure?

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How to silence the blogger

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Monday, 30 May 2011, 22:47

Give him a Tutor Marked Assignment.

The struggle is to get what I'd like to say in a book down to 4,000 words.

Permalink 4 comments (latest comment by Jonathan Vernon, Wednesday, 1 June 2011, 16:35)
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