Task 2b: Reflective Writing

I found this task both interesting and challenging. I guess everybody has their own specific writing style so trying to change this each day was quite hard. I really had to think about exactly how or what to write as I often found myself reverting back to my usual style. However this did help me a lot in reflecting on my days and I found some of the styles that I had originally cast off, to be the most useful. I also had to be wary of anonymising those that I work with so I wasn't breaching any privacy policies. Here's how I got on with each style... I have set them out in order of how well they helped me reflect and learn from (starting with the least helpful):

What if...?:
The dreaming entry. I don't really feel this helped me develop thoughts on my daily experiences of my professional practice however it did help me to change my attitude towards things and put a more positive spin on events that would maybe frustrate me usually. I felt more appreciative of the day and it spurred me on to continue working hard as I could visualise and imagine my goals and dreams.

Another view:

I enjoyed writing about my day from a different point of view as it made me think about how I come across to others and try and see a different view on events without my personal preference/opinion clouding judgements. I actually wrote the entry as if I was my pointe shoes and included both events to do with with my dancing but also my reactions from an outside perspective. This style definitely helps me to look more outwards and question how I do things although in terms of learning from my experiences, I didn't find this style very helpful mainly because I was guessing what the outside perspective was. I don't actually know what my pointe shoes thought! ;) 

List:

• Easiest.
• Least time consuming - most likely to keep up with.
• Less likely to stray back to 'normal' style.
• Not enough detail for me to be able to reflect well on.
• Good way of seeing specific points/events quickly to refer to.

Descriptive entry:

My descriptive entry was closest to how I naturally would write a journal, describing what happened as if telling the story to somebody else. I did use reaction but it was mainly 'What? Where? When? Who?' and didn't really elaborate on my progression of thought. For example "I woke up at 8.30 and felt tired. Class was an hour and fifteen today which I found to be a bit short. Casanova rehearsal was a full run through and I felt it went well." Although this style is naturally how I would write a journal of which I explained in my last post, I'm an amateur so actually by going back to my entries and reflecting on them I learnt that although this style is of use to me, it wasn't the best out of the lot.

Initial Reflection entry:

This way of writing helped me to remember what I was thinking straight after events happened. It is good to look back and remember what I thought/felt (which I normally don't write enough of) and I found this helpful in learning to do that. I do find though that thinking over things more helps me and often my initial reaction and reflection on things is down to the heat of a moment and not always the most reasonable: "During centre work I focused on my balance although my turns could've been better, I was frustrated as they weren't as good as they can be and it dampened my otherwise good mood. "

Graphs and Diagrams:
This was probably joint top of my most useful ways of writing a journal. Infact I think I would use both this and Evaluation together. Along with the graphs and diagrams I used colours (as you can see from this blog entry). I have a somewhat photographic memory so when learning retaining and remembering information, colours really help. This proved to be really useful for me during my academic studies at school so what better way to learn when doing my degree! I have posted a couple of pictures of some diagrams I did so you get an idea on how I used it: 

This first graph gave me the basic outline on how I could think through my experiences and learn from them. Here is an example of one from my journal using my method above:

Evaluation entry:

I found this style was probably the best for me. It made me look more into what happened and how I could improve on the events. Surprisingly it made me reflect in more depth straight away while writing instead of coming back to the entry later and then evaluating each of the events in order to think in depth. It was effectively a more thorough version of my Initial Reflection style as I developed and improved on things while writing them down. When I came back to reflect on it and gain knowledge, it was easier as the 'in depth' thoughts I would usually be thinking over, were already written down so I could progress onto learning more. 

The thing I took away from this task was not only the news way of writing a journal in order to enhance my self learning, but to remember that my 'normal' way of doing things (on the contrary to what I may think) isn't always the most efficient or helpful to myself. I am a person who is open to new ideas but sometimes I lack the energy to bother as I dont always imagine they'll help me anymore. This task proved me wrong... Don't knock until you try!

Task 2a: Dear Diary (Reflective Practice)

Dear Diary,

Today I read through reader 2 and what was expected of me in task 2a. The main idea I got from this was we are to keep our own journal in order for us to reflect on our daily activities. Then from here we can analyse and develop our initial ideas and reactions on the events and learn much more from it. I can't say I have properly kept a journal before, apart from when I was younger and used to write my 7 year-old self's 'secrets' in the diary I had got for my birthday. Even then the novelty soon wore off and after a few days I would forget or lose interest. I tend to learn visually though so writing a journal (with use of colour, diagrams etc) is probably the best way for me to account my experiences.

I have started my journal writing and already see a running theme in how I write. I tend to simply note down the facts and occasional reactions to events. I am quite a logical person and lists of what happened is naturally what I would write about, beginning with what teacher took class or what role I danced in a performance. I am now going to try and explore the different styles of writing a diary and see if this helps me improve the development of my ideas. Hopefully this will help me to learn more from my entries. Will let you know how I get on! .... :)

Emma

How You Conduct Yourself

I read this article and video today on Elitedaily.com about the "Innovation of Loneliness" and thought it was very fitting to the discussions being had over Reader 1 about both ethics and social media in general. One of the points being how we use social media to advertise ourselves in the best possible light. In our industry this is what we have to do on a daily basis (and especially when applying for jobs) and although in the clip it is primarily talking about our social lives, this isn't always a good thing. I've posted both the video and link below. Let me know your thoughts and comments on it.

http://elitedaily.com/news/world/this-video-will-have-you-completely-rethink-how-you-conduct-yourself-online-and-in-person-video/


The Innovation of Loneliness from Shimi Cohen on Vimeo.

Task 1c: Starting out on BAPP

So I have to admit I have been dreading this task. Mainly due to the fact that I can't stand hearing myself back on videos but also because I have never actually made a Youtube video before. Like most of the other Web 2.0 tools it turned out to be pretty simple and a lot less difficult than I had thought it might be (although I still don't like hearing myself back any more than I did). So heres a brief introduction of me and what I want to gain from this course.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqK9aMeWr5E

Task 1b (2): My further thoughts on Reader 1

I was having another look through Reader 1 and after posting my initial thoughts I thought I'd share with you my further developed ideas about Web 2.0 and it's tools that will help me (and already apply) with my blogging and my own professional practice.

Firstly after Paula's comment I've been thinking more about how my current ballet company uses social media and Web 2.0 tools. Here is a link to my theatre's facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/vanemuine.
Here you can see they often update it, promoting upcoming shows and concerts held here and what the ballet company and other theatre departments are involved with. They also update their followers on the latest news and whenever there's a premiere photos of the show will be uploaded. You can probably see the current cover photo is promoting our new ballet Raymonda. The company also have a Youtube account where they upload videos and clips from productions. This is quite a useful tool for my own professional practice too as audition videos can be sent as a youtube clip.
http://www.youtube.com/user/kaunitarjakoletis
I managed to embed a video of last seasons Beauty & the Beast (Kaunitar ja Koletis) off of the Vanemuine Ballet youtube page taken from the wings as a small promotional video prior to the premiere. I hope you enjoy!



In O'reilly's 'meme' it talks about RSS technology allowing people to receive notifications when they 'subscribe' to a page. I was wondering if Blogger has something similar? I find I keep going back to the list of blogs to visit other peoples and don't seem to be notified if somebody replies to any comments I make. Does anybody know if you can receive some form of notification? Or do we just keep having to go back to the comment to check? On my network dance profile I often receive emails as a way of telling me when somebody has updated their profile or added pictures etc. This makes networking so much easier.

So many young people these days are glued to TV/laptop/mobile phone screens subsequently because of the wonders of Web 2.0. It is so much easier to communicate and it saves a lot of time, effort and money. People can communicate with more than one person at a time and get replies straight away without spending a penny. However in some ways, although Web 2.0 has solved so many communication problems, has it also created them? Often people don't take as much time to sit down and have a one to one conversation with a friend in person. I know I tend to message people over ringing them now. I always enjoyed receiving post from home when I was away at school but rarely now do I write letters unless I have to. Sometimes its nice to have something to actually hold. Although Web 2.0 without a doubt has changed things for the better, as Melanie Cannon points out... I don't think we should forget those traditional ways of communicating once in a while :)

Task 1b: Professional Communication Technologies

I have a confession! After reading the Professional Communication Technologies handbook my eyes have been opened. In today's society so many of us rely on the internet for our professional and social lives and without realising I have been using Web 2.0 without even being aware of its existence and its specifically categorized platforms.

O'reilly's meme map really helped me to understand exactly what Web 2.0 is and how we have progressed from Web 1.0. It has many specific principles but my main understanding is it has enabled one to one communication to be improved by enabling more people to interact and subsequently making the user become the creator as well as the reader. Valtysson suggests that more participation leads to less distinction between the reader and the creator (or consumer and producer) establishing the 'Prosumer' and Bruns' calls the act of users both producing and using 'Produsage'. These two ideas really help me to understand one of the main principles of Web 2.0.

So much of my current social and professional life relies on Web 2.0 already and the thought of going back to a one to one communication system is quite daunting because as sad as it is to admit, I would be somewhat lost without it. Living in Estonia for one would be a lot harder as contact with family and friends back home would be a lot more difficult and I would be likely to feel pretty ostracized. Having the likes of Facebook and Twitter help me to feel a lot closer than the 1090 miles away that I actually am and lets face it, why would I spend the time and money on writing a letter to have a reply a week later, when I could communicate with others there and then for free?!

As a professional Web 2.0 is extremely useful when it comes to networking and learning. An example being Youtube. This has been extremely useful especially since being a professional. Other than to be on there and goggle at incredible dancers who I aspire to be, it has helped me to learn choreography. I learnt a solo for a competition purely by watching it on there and have used it recently to watch parts of our newest ballet Raymonda. Another being Network Dance, a site designed for dancers to communicate and network between other dancers and companies as well as find important information and news.

"Ullrich suggests that one of the key aspects of a Web 2.0 model is that these services are constantly evolving and that each platform is progressively developed and replaced" (Reader 1)
This immediately made me think of how facebook is constantly changing the layout. I used to get quite frustrated when I'd log in and have to find my way around a new news feed layout or page/timeline settings but that made me think. What is it that keeps us all on facebook? When other sites alike such as Bebo and myspace were around they grew out of "fashion" pretty quick. Maybe part of the reason we all stuck to facebook is because its constantly developing. I believe many would have got bored if we were still only shown the top 3 status' of the day and a timeline was something we learnt about in History lessons!

Ethical consideration is a big thing in social media. As users we create interest on these websites for others to see but it is easy to forget exactly who can read them. Once posted, nothing can be re-done and although you can delete, out of those 1 billion users of facebook, 4 billion views on Youtube a day and the 200 million active users of twitter, SOMEONE is likely to have noted it. Although privacy settings are (or can be) high there are many ways to access data on someone and when applying for a job these social networking sites could quickly become your biggest enemy. Copyright is also an easy mistake to make and we must be wary of exactly who owns the right to things we post and do we have permission to post them.

Google Docs: Study Schedule

Today I have been playing around with the google docs tool and finally managed to upload something. I have drawn up a rough idea of my own study schedule. My days are often scheduled differently but I have tried to give myself guidelines to help. Here it is:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GrvSlGSQwHUHd8GOXcUqr4anHSZ7QkRAbjW1e0r0uis/pub