Tuesday, 24 April 2007
MirandaNet and the five-stage model
I was at a seminar yesterday by Christina Preston of MirandaNet, an interesting community of practice for teachers and associated professionals, that has been in existence since 1992 and online since around 1994 but not really effective online until recently.
She reminded us how important it is to do learning (courses) in the context of a community of practice to complete and continue the learning. In many cases, learners do not reach beyond the third or at most fourth stage of Gilly Salmon's five-stage model because they have to prioritise personal learning for assessment and exams, and the collaborative effort falls off. Christina told us what I have found also in my experience, that if course members are also part of a community of practice then there is a chance of developing real collaborative ongoing learning, mutual support and problem solving.
I enjoyed hearing about MirandaNet, a vibrant and international community of practice.
posted by Helen Whitehead 9:32 AM
Wednesday, 18 April 2007
BBC Online courses
The BBC still have available various short self-study online courses. They include several in creative writing. Of course, a "real" course like Season of Inspiration, with tutors and fellow students to feedback on the exercises and writing, is much more useful than self-study, but until we announce the next Season of Inspiration course, I guess it's what's available :)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learning/onlinecourses/Labels: e-learning, season of inspiration, writing, writing courses
posted by Helen Whitehead 10:11 AM
Wednesday, 11 April 2007
Comment is free?
Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian argues that The blogosphere risks putting off everyone but point-scoring males
While "censorship" is never going to work, the idea of an online reputation is already important. I am very aware that anything I write - whether here in this blog, or on my work sites such as Reach Further or the Adelie Project or on a forum or someone else's blog - is part of the whole "Helen Whitehead" online persona.
There is an obvious other side to this though. Jonathan Freedland says "Might it not be possible to have a single online identity, one that you cared about, even if it had little connection to your identity in the real world?"
There's the rub - why have only one online identity? I actually have two others. One is a fictional experiment and the second is for anything that I think is outside the professional Helen Whitehead persona... nothing untoward of course, merely the run-of-the-mill social and domestic activities that are the equivalent of the "private life" one has outside one's work. For example, a contribution to a domestic appliance recommendation site. I hope both my "real" identities have a trusted reputation online. But for others they could have as many identities as they need to use to abuse others, which do not affect their trusted identity. There isn't an answer other than to behave like civilised people. And some people just won't.
posted by Helen Whitehead 1:07 PM
Guidelines for bloggers
This is an interesting approach to blogging by employees - the guidelines drawn up by the BBC on blogging by its employees
posted by Helen Whitehead 1:05 PM
