The downward, outward and upward spiral

Two posts in a week -wow, I do have more time now! This is just a brief musing in relation to my Developing Researcher Competence. As we work through our Pilot Study we are required to make decisions about the actual design of the study - ultimately giving our opinions- why we did what we did, why we think what we think. Something hit me when I was thinking through this process.

For me, I can liken this design of a pilot study to a movable spiral. Continuously moving over the bigger picture of the design process and then moving the focus in or out, as the design question dictates. Two things came up that I need to reflect further on:

It is quite easy to be lost in the detail, but for a research project you may have to be...

One small decision can, and will change the whole scope of the final project

This links back to my ideas about making rash decisions and having to question everything - I believe that this is called researcher transparency and this is what we are looking at in the next step.

I quite like this movable spiral metaphor and I would be interested to see if anyone else had a metaphor for when they are conducting research.

Goodbyes and hellos

So. Last Friday was my final day at the Castle School of English, Brighton... I was at the school for 4 years, 3 of them as DoS. I learned a lot about myself and what I want from a profession, and also what is important to me. This, I am sure, will be invaluable in the future. The owner of the school asked me if I thought I had changed over the four years. I don't know if I have changed, but I have learned how I react to certain situations

It is starting to get real now- this moving lark. This morning I was watching UK border force on TV and just started panicking about being turned away at the airport. My naturally tendency to worry, again:)I will not really relax until I am on the other side of the barrier!

I spent the morning reading other people's accounts of the visa process and experience of Newark as a Port of Entry. Fascinatingly scary, but didn't read about anyone who got completely turned away, so that must be a good thing.

Was a wee bit sad to leave Castle, they are a great bunch of talented individuals, but this profession does seem to go hand in hand with quite a transient lifestyle. The fantastic upshot of this is that I now have a lot more time to spend on my new role and my final year at Manchester.

I am REALLY excited about my new position. Teaching in Second Life is just amazing, I love it! I can liken it to when I passed the CELTA and everything is new; it has certainly given me a new lease of life on the teaching front. My new employers seem an absolute dream bunch of people. Everything I want really - talented, dedicated, supportive. I am excited to see how this new position develops... one for future reflection I fancy.

Sacroiliac Joint

For those non-medical folk, here is a quick run down on the Sacroiliac Joint...and its accompanying pain.



The sacroiliac joint or SI joint is the joint in the bony pelvis between the sacrum and the ilium of the pelvis, which are joined together by strong ligaments. In humans, the sacrum supports the spine and is supported in turn by an ilium on each side. The joint is a strong, weight bearing synovial joint with irregular elevations and depressions that produce interlocking of the two bones. The human body has two sacroiliac joints, one on the left and one on the right, that often match each other but are highly variable from person to person.

Pain is thought to be caused by sacroiliitis, an inflammation of one of the sacroiliac joint(s), which is a common cause of unilateral low back pain. With sacroiliitis, the individual may experience pain in the low back, buttock or thigh, depending on the amount of inflammation. Common problems of the sacroiliac joint are often called sacroiliac joint dysfunction (also termed SI joint dysfunction; SIJD). The cause of sacroiliac joint dysfunction is likely a disruption of the correlative movements between the left and right sacroiliac joints (from either too much or too little movement creating an antagonistic position of the left and right innominate bones creating a pelvic obliquity, when they normally should appear symmetrical). Info from wikipedia



Quite a strange title and opening for a post in this blog, but all will become clear!
I will start with a quick catch up. I final got my visa for the USA after a few twists and turns. We have a put a deposit on a place to rent, I have a new job and am on final countdown until the move. I have two more weeks at work. I have also been diagnosed with SIJD, a common running injury; Yesterday was the first time I had ran for more than 5 weeks... More on that later.

All very exciting / traumatic and I think a legitimate reason for not having posted for a while. I must say though that this blog had often been on my mind.

Plus, and perhaps most importantly, Uni started again. This has been great!
It has been wonderful catching up with people after the really short summer, and seeing how all the hard work we have done over the last two years is culminating on our Developing Researcher Competence module. Manchester really has attracted a high level of candidates and it will be great to see what the future holds for everyone and where this course will take people.

This module relies heavily on an iterative process of self reflection and exploration of the process of researching an area.

Anyhoo, as part of this module, I have gone for the following area to explore.

I want to explore how teachers in Second Life use the environment. I had various ideas prior to this, a few false starts and a few revisions but I feel that this is the most suitable for me, right now and for my future. I don't want to get down that road right now, as I am still working through the process. So the point of this post (thank you if you are still here:)) Is that I realised that I am really rubbish at making big decisions! And there is a link here with my Sacroiliac Joint injury. During the process I had a tendency to choose the first option that seemed like a best fit, rather than thinking it through. It seemed as though I couldn't or didn't want to have a decision hanging over me. When I had my injury, and this was pre-diagnosis, I just decided that I would knock running on the head- I didn't want to have the idea of an injury hanging over me. I just wanted to remove myself from that arena! Not very rationale - especially for a 32 year old. This realization. that I can do such rash actions, is massive for me. Taking a step back before charging into something is reckless and something I need to work on. I don't know if running helped me with this realization, but it has made me think. I feel as though it was a watershed moment- hence this long, long post. So here is to my rather fine, but not too well, Sacroiliac joint. Long may you keep me grounded, in every sense of the word.

Transactional distance a changing perspective

a psychological and communication space to be crossed, a space of potential misunderstanding between the inputs of instructor and those of the learner (Moore, 1980)

In preparation for my imminent return to studies at Manchester, I have been re-reading some of the course materials. I love this time of year as it is a great opportunity to revisit ideas and comments made half a year ago and see how similar they are now. It is fascinating to see how ideas have been altered or strengthened based on the praxis of real world application. One such idea hit home with me last week and ties together a number of themes that are running through the DNA of this blog.

I was taking part in an SL session with colleagues from Europe (including UK ) and USA. As the session progressed I was aware more and more of a distance between the participants and myself. Nothing extraordinary there as this space is generally apparent in many online sessions, what I found interesting however, was the fact that my sense of transactional distance was shifting…

I had never felt this in a session before. Initially, the space between the UK participants was there but small. The distance between Brighton and Wyoming was noticeable and apparent to the extent you could almost touch it. Knowing the location and nationality of a person influenced me greatly and I am not sure why! This never happened with the online sessions organised with the University of Manchester.

There is a lot to unpack here and includes ideas about formal / informal learning; a walled garden of education; sense of self online… I am going to reflect on these issues further as the weeks progress and I am really interested to see how my move of
3899.7 miles (6275.9 Km / 3386.5 Nautical miles) will change how I interact with colleagues, friends, in the same arenas as now. Will there be a difference…. Probably…why…. I am not sure…yet:)

Moore, M. G. (1980). Independent study. In R. Boyd & J. Apps (Eds.), Redefining the Discipline of Adult Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 16–31.

learning in, from and about Second Life (the blurring of boundaries)

Well as promised, here is another post about my newly re-found love of second life.

It is very similar to a request I made in Avalon I would recommend you have a look at this great ning. A really supportive and friendly bunch of educators:)

I am fortunate enough now to be in the position where I can observe a lot of experienced teachers in SL. For my own development, as a fledgling English teacher in Second Life, I was wondering how I could capitalise on each observation that I do.

To this end, I have created a work in progress of an adapted RL lesson observation sheet, trying to make it more SL user-friendly. I would greatly welcome feedback on this rough doc (please see below) and comments suggestions on if I have overlooked or missed something. I am also wondering about my approach to this observation sheet as it based on RL pedagogical approaches and these may not be as relevant in the SL arena... Any comments greatly received:)

SL observations

Throughout the observation think about how the affordances of SL are capitalised upon.

How does the teacher get the students’ attention at the beginning of the lesson?
What does she/he say? What mimes or gestures does he/she use?

1 What are the learners doing when the teacher arrives?
How do the learners (re)act?
How does the teacher open the lesson?
Does the teacher explain his/her plan and objective(s) to the learners?

2 Are the learners aware of the objective of the lesson?
What are they doing at this stage?
Are there any organizational tasks that are done by the teacher? (notecards)

3 Are there any organizational tasks that individual pupils do?
Which stages of the lesson can you identify?
How many stages are there? How are they segmented?

4 Which organizational forms are used by the teacher?
Front of class
groupwork /pairwork
presentations (with what media)
individual work

5 Does the teacher give the students any choice concerning the order of tasks/ partners/ places/
activities/ topics/ reading…?

6 How do the learners decide what to do next?
Do they need any help?

Transitions:
How does the teacher lead from one activity to the next?
Is the lesson organized step by step or as a workshop?

7 How do the students move from one activity to the next?
How much time is lost for transitions?

How does the teacher react to learners’ mistakes?


8 Are the learners worried about making mistakes?
(How) does the teacher announce homework? (if any is set- is iit dine in SL/ RL combination?)
How is the homework related to the activities in class?

9 Do the students have a clear understanding of the homework tasks and any materials they will need?
How does the teacher close the lesson?

10 How do the learners and teacher deal with and react to technical problems in SL?

11 Lesson Observation Tasks Students’ experience Class atmosphere and learners’ Behaviour

How does the teacher create a positive learning atmosphere?
How does the teacher encourage learners to use the target language?
How does the teacher manage to get everybody involved?

Does the teacher use any special words, symbols, gestures to help the learners understand or to get their attention?

What else did you notice?
Do the learners seem to be interested?
Do they seem at ease and taken seriously?
Are the learners using the target language?
Are all the learners actively involved?
Are there any noticeable individual groups?


What I want to remember / take away from this observation.

The photo is an attempt to highlight the blurring of boundaries between real life and second life. I was lucky enough to go on a tour of Brighton and Hove Albion's new ground. I couldn't resist pretending that I was the manger for this snap:)


Visit AVALON

Second Life

I have watched this video 8 times in a row now. A colleague came over to see what I was laughing at and they walked away in disgust. I guess some people just don't see the affordances of SL!

Expect more SL related musings and postings in this arena.

The school's wookie

This post is about wikis or wookies (I was asked the question what is a wookie on Friday by a member of staff, it was only after my explanation that I realised they were referring to the school's wiki)

As an off-shoot of implementing google docs, I created school wikis about 6 months ago. The affordances of wikis are apparent for me:I have used them extensively at Manchester and for me they just make sense as a learning tool.

I set them up as both a repository for learning materials but also as a space for sharing advice and tips- creating a pool of shared experience and knowledge.

No-one is using them! No-one is looking at them!

I have reminded people weekly about the wikis, I have talked individually with teachers about how to upload materials and edit and add comments. I have given workshops on how to incorporate them into self-development but nothing has changed. It is only yours truly who is adding materials. I am not sure why! I am going to reflect more and post on this. In the meantime, I would be interested to know if anyone has had similar experiences, or if anyone would like to comment on the use of wikis in teacher development.