Comment comment comment!

So the final part of this task is to comment on everyone else's blogs and work. This i will be able to do pretty easy as from what I've seen everyone seems to be coming to the end of task 3!
With that said if everyone could comment on mine with constructive comments and feedback that would be great! I will shortly be going round everyones and having a nosey :)

3d Critical questions and issues that emerge

Do some very specific ideas emerge about your networking and sources? Does your engagement to date seem appropriate?limited? Focused? Planned? Unplanned?

I feel my engage in the last 2 tasks has been my upmost. Although task 3 i have struggled with the most but after reading everyone else's blogs it seems everyone has struggled with task 3 more than the others. My sources has changed tremendously as I don't just turn to the internet like i would do before i go to visual aids such as youtube for a more creative answer or i look in books. I find that this has helped develop my skills as a learner. I feel at the moment i am the most planned and organised i have ever been regarding my work, and my attitude towards my work has improved too.

Are your ideas, positions or concerns shared by others within and/or beyond your professional area of work?

I know a lot of people on the course were apprehensive going towards to final essay, we discussed this in our group session last week. I feel we are now all on the same page and in the same position with the work. I am quite close to Alice and we talk a lot via text or Facebook about where we are at with the work and we do help each other out a lot.  I feel we all do share similar ideas when it comes to social media and our communities of practice.

Does sharing ideas and communicating with others shift your thinking,planning or practice?

I think yes 100% if i am struggling with a task or what to see someone else's approach to that task i will look on other peoples blogs to get a feel for it. This helps me as normally when i see what someone else has done the penny drops and i think oh yeah thats right! Then i just go from there it normally gives me the kickstart i need into the right direction. Also when we have group sessions its nice and comforting to see other people asking questions that i want to know the answers too. It also drives me more when we gave group chats and we all bounce off each other and give examples of situations and that makes me think 'yeah i never thought about it like that' its true as the saying goes two heads are better than one!

Does critical reflection help you decide what really matters and the actions to take?

Yes it does for me. I have mentioned in previous blogs that critical reflection has helped me so much in my meetings at work. I feel I have a new voice and so many new passionate ideas that i didn't necessarily take to the table before. I am more analytical about myself and my peers at work and i feel confident to give constructive feedback and have evidence to back up my thoughts and ideas. I use Rolfe's theory the most the 3 questions really help me if i am struggling to know what to do in a situation. I feel that if i just take a second and really think about it the most sensible outcome will come to light. If however it doesn't always go to plan i reflect when I'm having some 'me' time and think in my head how the situation could of ended differently and what i would do next time.

To what extent do concepts and theories assist you in thinking about your professional networking in different ways? And do these different ways of thinking have some purpose for you?

All the research i have done have purpose for me in different ways as in the pervious question i mentioned Rolfe's theory as that has been the one that has stuck with me the most during this study period but i have used others in given circumstances which have proposed me at the time. I think it depends on the situation for me personally. Before learning about different practitioners i would not of used any form of concept in my daily life as i didn't even know reflective thinking existed! But now it plays a strong part in my personal time and when something doesn't go right i will turn to these ways of thinking instead of procrastinating.

Are you left thinking differently prior to this part of the module? If so, how?

Yes i am, I feel that it has changed me massively as a person. Not only do i think deeper i am more of a constructive person. I rarely think negatively anymore and i try to see both sides of a situation especially in my work environment. I am uploading blogs regularly which i never knew how to do before and i have been uploading videos to youtube which i would never of dreamed about before as i used to hate speaking in-front of a camera. I am a lot more confident and i feel like this course has made me that way. I am confident in what i do and say and i do not doubt myself anymore.

Task 3c Sources of Information

So i decided to do a video instead of a long winded blog!
any feedback please comment!

Task 3b Theories relating to networking

Communities of Practice can be defined, in part, as a process of social learning that occurs when people who have a common interest in a subject or area collaborate over an extended period of time, sharing ideas and strategies, determine solutions, and build innovations. Wenger gives a simple definition: “Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.” Note that this allows for, but does not require intentionality. Learning can be, and often is, an incidental outcome that accompanies these social processes.
https://www.learning-theories.com/communities-of-practice-lave-and-wenger.html

COP first being developed by Jean lave and Etienne Wenger explores the three main ideas of 
The community:
How a group of people link together and allow them to share ideas and thoughts. Its all about interacting and learning together. Not necessarily always in the same place at once but being a part of a community is everywhere. You cannot live life without a part of any community. 

The Practice:
As a practitioner we share experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring problems normally in  different environments such as school,work, or even catch ups in a coffee shop. A lot of time people do not realise that they are talking about their community for example a group of people on a lunch break who talk about their work are actually talking and comparing stories of their work community whilst not intuitionally doing so.

 I find it easier to understand if it is split into different scenarios;
http://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/

Problem solving

“Can we work on this design and brainstorm some ideas; I’m stuck.”

Requests for information

“Where can I find the code to connect to the server?”

Seeking experience

“Has anyone dealt with a customer in this situation?”

Reusing assets

“I have a proposal for a local area network I wrote for a client last year. I can send it to you and you can easily tweak it for this new client.”

Coordination and strategy

“Can we combine our purchases of solvent to achieve bulk discounts?”

Building an argument

“How do people in other countries do this? Armed with this information it will be easier to convince my Ministry to make some changes.”

Growing confidence

“Before I do it, I’ll run it through my community first to see what they think.”

Discussing developments

“What do you think of the new CAD system? Does it really help?”

Documenting projects

“We have faced this problem five times now. Let us write it down once and for all.”

Visits

“Can we come and see your after-school program? We need to establish one in our city.”

Mapping knowledge and identifying gaps

“Who knows what, and what are we missing? What other groups should we connect with?”

i love this use of scenarios as it really clears all the different methods in my head.

For now i am going to give myself a bit of time to emerge myself fully into researching more and let it settle in my mind a bit more.

Task 3a Current Networks

As we all know social media is the biggest it has ever been in today's society. We are so dependant on our phones,iPads,laptops and computers that a lot of people say "what would we do without phones?" or i hear a lot of people say "how did people get around without phones?" The most influential tools are Facebook,twitter,snapchat and Instagram. I currently use all of these social media sites and apps as its considered strange if you don't have them! My whole time at drama school we were always told to keep all of our social media professional as yes it is your own private account that doesn't mean important people won't see it. For example i have a family member who is a primary school teacher and she had to go to the extreme of changing her name on Facebook so that pupils, pupils parents and higher teachers wouldn't find her on Facebook and she told me that she knows people who didn't pass the interview stage because the interviewer looked them up on Facebook and saw a lot of pictures of the person on a night out. This is the extreme that social media has got to. I currently have a 'normal' CV and a 'professional' CV this is to keep professional and private life separate.

Here is a screen shot of my current Facebook,
I don't write much personally but i do like pages,statuses and i do share a lot of pictures and videos

A lot of famous people thrive off how many followers they have on all forms of social media with their constant uploads of videos and pictures.

http://starcasm.net/archives/354431

I know a lot of people who are auditioning and trying to make it in the professional industry see it as its not what you know its who you know. With it being such a small world there will always be someone who you follow on a social media site who knows someone else for you to retweet or make your face known too. I believe its much easier to get spotted by the right people and to be much more involved with the industry than it ever has been before. I am going to research into this more and look up on the external links given in reader 3.

Group Chat Monday 21st November

So i have recently just finished a adobe breeze group chat with Paula and 10 others. Firstly i was glad to hear that it wasn't just me feeling apprehensive as we go towards end of term! As i plan to start out on task 3 tomorrow it was very knowledgable to hear how other students have approached this task and their own experiences. We also spoke about the end of term essay which we all had questions and queries about so it was good to get all loose ends tidied up and i  now feel like i have a much better understanding and direction of my reflective essay. We also spoke about how our professional identity links into other connections. I loved Alice's example of how she has a group of people who she has never met but she has come into contact due to them doing the same work at the hotel which she works at. I have never thought about connections this way but this is actually very similar to me as i have people who work below me and managers above me but i feel like i have learnt a lot more from the trainees who i train than i have learnt from people who are higher up than me. I think this because training people has made me learn a lot about myself and how to approach situations. This is not something that you can be taught but you can only learn from experiencing it yourself! i have learnt so much from tonights group session about myself and about the tasks ahead of me. I love how this course has really pushed me out of my comfort zone and made me really think about my own reflective journey. This has made me excited to begin task 3 and to continue drafting my essay.

task 2d- Inquiry

Task 2d is all about how the ideas of reflection relate to me i will use extracts from my own personal journal and extracts from this blog.

What in your daily practise gets you really enthusiastic to find out more about?who do you admire who also works with what makes you enthusiastic?
So currently i work at nandos full time, its not what i would like to do with the rest of my life but for at the time being whilst i finish my studying it is where i need to be. As i work full time i do class it as my second home, I'm pretty sure i actually spend more time there than i do at home! I would say that I'm rather invested into the business as i am a 'buddy trainer' which is non nandos language that is a someone who trains people to get to the best standard they can be, my job entails training new members of staff,going to weekly meetings with managers, taking leadership on shifts and making sure job standards are completed. I would say at the moment that getting trainees through their 12 week training is what keeps me enthusiastic not only that, I'm so intrigued to find out more as every trainee i have is completely different. This is great for my own personal development skills as every person i come into contact with has a different approach and a different learning style. For my own development i would like to find out more about what it would take to develop my training skills and how far i could potentially push myself with my leadership skills. I admire my collegue B (for personal and safety reasons i have changed her real name to B). She trained me when i first started and i wouldn't be where i am today without her. She is great at her job and influences me on a daily basis. She makes me enthusiastic as she says she sees a lot of herself in me and always pushes me to be the best i can be. (parts are taken from my journal)

What gets you angry or makes you sad? who do you admire who shares your feelings or has found away to work around the sadness or anger?
The past few weeks i have been pretty sad and frustrated with the management team at work. My reasons for this are we have been taking on a lot of new staff members in preparation for christmas. I understand that we have to recruit for the busiest time of year but the people we are employing are not up to scratch. Everyone has a trail shift before being offered a job but after their trail shift i will get asked for my opinion by the management team, even if i say i don't think this person is quite right they will still employ them. This frustrates me as i think why ask for my opinion if you are going to hire them anyway? It is making my job role very difficult as all the new trainees don't have very good availability and can only work a few hours a week at certain times. From my job role point of view this is annoying as it makes it pretty much impossible to fully train someone in the limited time i am given to get this person through their training. Another colleague of mine S (for the same purposes as before i will use a letter instead of their name). S suffers with anxiety and i admire her massively as i know she is in the same position as me, i know she also is struggling like i am too. I know i am stressed but i can't help but think that she is struggling a lot more than i am. Dealing with a mental illness is not something to be taken lightly and i know from in-depth conversation with S that she has done amazingly well to work around her anger and sadness she has learnt to talk about it,rant when she needs to and seek medical help. When it gets really difficult we always chat to each other and just let it all out! this has helped me and S tremendously.     (parts are taken from my journal)

What do you feel you don't understand? Who do you admire who does seem to understand it or who has found a way of making not understanding it interesting or beautiful, or has asked the same questions as you?
My answer to this is completely off topic from my first two answers! Lucy Watson who is mainly known off E4's Made in Chelsea branched off from the tv show a year or so ago has asked the same questions as me. She is a dedicated animal lover and vegan. I feel that i don't understand why people turn off their emotions whilst eating meat and forget that it was something once living. Lucy has found a way of making people who don't understand interesting AND beautiful, in my opinion anyway. She has cleverly used her fame to get the message out their about how much animals do suffer in the meat industry and also for makeup purposes. She has recently brought out her own cruelty free and vegan lipsticks. She is showing the world the truth of what happens behind closed door and how wrong it is to test makeup on animals. She has also proven that you can achieve the same makeup goals without spending a fortune and without using products which have been used for animal testing. I am currently trying to get my hands on one of the lipsticks but they are sold out! :(
To me this is amazing as she doesn't understand the same things as i and she also asks the same questions as i do. Also being the face of PETA has made a massive influence to vegans and non vegans.

http://www.healthista.com/lucy-watsons-new-lipstick-range-basic-bitch-gets-the-healthista-treatment/

How do you decide the appropriate ethical response in a given situation? To what extent are disciplinary responses different to that you might expect more generally in society? What level of physical contact would you deem appropriate and not from another professional that you would find unacceptable more generally?why?

This question took me a while to think of answer. This is such a big topic in society currently. What are the boundaries and what is considered to much or not enough? My ethical response depends on the situation if i am at work i would expect an common sense response from customers. With my fellow workers i think its slightly different as we are all so close and great friends the boundaries are different. I would probably find it uncomfortable if a customer who i didnt know got close in my personal space as i don't really think their would be any need for it. I would always decide what i think is appropriate in that moment so if i felt it was okay to physically stand a certain way i would, I think its easy to tell from the other persons body language and what the conversation is about. But generally in society we go past hundreds of people a day and do not say a word we try and sit away from everyone else on public transport. We like to just keep ourselves to ourselves. 

Task 2c- Reflective Theory

Reflective practice is a way of studying your own experiences to improve the way you work. It is very useful for health professionals who want to carry on learning throughout their lives. The act of reflection is a great way to increase confidence and become a more proactive and qualified professional.
After doing my own bit of research into several practitioners i have realised that there are so many different methods of reflective practise, there isn't necessarily a right or wrong method it really depends on the person and the situation. Ive hand selected a few practitioners that i have researched in detail.

My first practitioner is Jenny Moon
Jenny Moon (1999) outlines five stages of learning;

Stage 1: Noticing	The student has to register the topic, event or incident as being interesting or important in some way.
Stage 2: Making sense	The student thinks more about what they have noticed and tries to understand it better.
Stage 3: Making meaning	The student starts to ask questions and to connect ideas together.
Stage 4: Working with meaning	The student makes links with other ideas and events. They would probably refer to literature and other research. At this point, reflection on the learning is likely to be taking place.
Stage 5: Transformative learning	The student has reached the point where they can formulate new ideas of their own. They know what they would do if a similar situation arose in the future.

Jenny Moon finds that keeping learning journals to document her teaching is more beneficial for her students as they adapt to learn something that wasn't necessarily the target teaching point.

J.Dewey recommends using a structured day by day diary to then analyse the situation in hand, to then take a step back and to ask yourself why you responded the way you did? what is your main goal? did you act in the most ethical way? Dewey also writes about the wonder of childhood and how children are always 'reaching,grabbing,poking,pushing into things.' He describes children as 'open-minded' and aren't afraid to do anything. By mid-life our minds become more uncertain and unknown.

Gibbs’ model was developed from an earlier theoretical model; David Kolb’s 4 stage experiential learning cycle (1984).

 Although Kolbs is sometimes referred to as experimental learning, Gibbs is often referred to as iterative learning. The main aim of Gibbs reflective cycle is to link practise and theory, so overtime with enough repetition you will add knowledge into everyday life and you will be able to evaluate situations without realising you are using your six step cycle knowledge. This cycle is probably the format i am most used to using not just at drama school but for everyday situations. I feel i already use this when I'm on my way home from work or when I'm just having some 'me' time i can reflect on situations and ask myself these questions to work out if I'm happy with the outcome. I like the use of this cycle as once you reach the end you could easily start the six steps again with a different scenario, to make it never ending.


I really like the workings of Rolfe, his reflective theory is asking yourself 3 questions;so what?
now what? 
then what?
This theory was originally made by Terry Borton in 1970 but has been adapted since then by Gary Rolfe in 2001.
The objective is for what?
to describe a situation 
then for so what?
to scrutinise a situation fully breaking down every part
then for now what?
Which is the construction of knowledge past and present
This format has recently been used in hospital work and care work.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this task as i didnt even know that a lot of theories even existed. I hope to use as many as i can in my everyday journal and i hope to find out which theories work best for me as i know not all of them will be successful but i will document to everyone which ones have worked the most effectively for myself.

Bibliography
http://my.cumbria.ac.uk/Public/LISS/Documents/skillsatcumbria/ReflectiveModelRolfe.pdf
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/campuslife/services/disability/onlineresources/StudyGuides/Using
https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/08/18/how-we-think-john-dewey/
http://skillsforlearning.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/preview/content/models/06.shtml
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflective_practice
https://www.brightknowledge.org/knowledge-bank/medicine-and-healthcare/spotlight-on-medicine/what-is-reflective-practice

Teaching resources

So after getting inspired off a fellow BAPP students blog they attached a link to a teaching.gov website. I thought i would take a look and have now signed up myself! Anyone who is thinking of going into teaching wether it be secondary school or drama school i would recommend signing up to this site. They send you helpful emails to help you to take a step into the right direction for teaching by letting you know where the nearest teaching fairs are and what to do next. Thank you so much hannah for posting this as i didnt know anything about it until i saw it on your blog!
such a good feeling to be taking a positive step in the right direction.

Task 2b- Reflective writing

As you can all probably tell I'm excited for christmas by the background picture change!!

So initially going into this i thought how hard can it be? At my drama school we had to do a lot of reflective essays daily logs about how lessons went that day. The guidelines were simple questions like:
what did you do this lesson?
How do you think you did this lesson?
What was a strength?
what was a weakness?
one thing you would like to improve on?
what will you take forward to your next lesson?
and mark yourself out of 10 for effort.

This kind of format was pretty straight forward to follow as the questions it asked were straight to the point and didn't require a massive answer.
Researching more on after reading reader 2 i have a found a good website for anyone who might want to try a different form of online journal writing, I think all of them are free but all of them are a completely different format so might be worth having a go!

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/5-online-journaling-tools.html

I really liked this line from David Bound's 'Using journal writing to enhance reflective practise'

"Reflection involves taking the unprocessed, raw material of experience and engaging with it as a way to make sense of what has occurred."

For me this is my weakness in my journal writing so i have decided to take a different approach and ask myself questions after writing about my day. Here is an extract from my private journal:

got paid: £--- amount
transfer money to savings.
hair cut @ 11am
work @1pm
meeting 5-6pm

Work was fine today but we didnt have a manager present in the meeting this is annoying as we can get as much done and can't ask if the managers agree with our feedback with new trainees. It means we now have to go another week before we can have a full on session to be updated with what new things will be happening in the upcoming weeks and where we are at in terms of training ready for christmas. So as it was just 4 of us we basically just sat there for an hour moaning about everything that was wrong and didnt really get anywhere. We all then left in a bad mood all wound up about everything that is going wrong for us at work at the moment. I then left in an awful mood and had everything everyone said going round and round in my head and i started to think oh yeah actually thats happened to me too. Once one of us started ranting about something the others would join in and keep adding fuel to the fire.

So looking at a reflective view 
did i learn anything? 
what worked?
notice anything to avoid?
what if a manager was there?
how did this meeting compare to last weeks?

looking at all these questions i ask myself my answer is the whole thing was very negative wasn't productive at all. If a manager was present it wouldn't of happened, compared to the week before meeting which we got a lot of planning done and was very productive. I have learnt from this that if you need to moan about something do it at home as it effect everyone in your work place around you and makes them question things too and you all just end up in a bad mood together. I would definitely avoid bringing up anything negative or if i need to maybe end the sentence with a positive so it is more constructive. Ive learnt that being negative gets you nowhere and we didnt get any work done at all. Although this is a pretty negative experience I'm glad it happened as i now know what it feels like to be in that mental head space and its not healthy. I have managed to turn this into a positive thing and its all part of my learning journey. Asking myself questions has really helped me just to exhale the situation and treat it as a learning curve rather than an annoyance. 
I look forward to reading everyone else's journal journeys! any comments or feedback please let me know :)

Task 2a- Reflective Practice

I already keep an online journal which i would recommend this site to anyone as i think its really good its definitely worked well for me over the years and if you forget to write daily it sends you reminders

http://www.my-diary.org

at the moment i use it more as a diary than a journal but as i research more into journals i might find that i want to try a different form of journal writing to see how it goes. As a writer at the moment i don't really reflect on what i write i just kind of write about what happened that day good or bad vent about it and then i would just leave it, not necessarily ever going back over it. This is something that i need to work on as i find it easy to talk about events that have happened and how i felt at the time but i would never read back through to reflect on it at a future date. This is something i will try to do from now on in my private journal and i will continue to research into other ways of writing and how to expand my writing further.

Task 1D

so here is the link to my new flickr account
https://www.flickr.com/gp/145663150@N07/00ox81

my normal go to photo streaming app would be instagram but i thought it would be good to have a social media account that i didnt already have to just upload my performing pictures so far.
Im still getting used to it so please bare with me!
feel free to follow me or give me any tips on how to improve my current page :)

Task 1B- Professional communication technologies

"connectivity is a basic human right" (Zuckerberg, Shearlaw,2014)

on a long train journey back to leeds (with no wifi!) i decided to invest some time into reading reader 1 off my phone. My first initial thought was what has this got to do with professional practise but i was so wrong! i was gripped from the very beginning and i found it really interesting. we live in a day and age were technology and social media is at an all time high it has never been more in-depth than what it is now. The line i have quoted at the top really stuck with me after finishing reading that was the one line that was stuck in my head, its absolutely amazing that we have evolved to this point in social media, it makes me think that he is absolutely right as you hear so many stories now of people getting picked on if they don't have Facebook or aren't up to date with the latest trends on instagram. web 2.0 is used time and time again in the professional performing industry as it is so easy to get something out to the world, for example a post on 'the stage' app could easily be viewed hundreds of times a day without any effort really needed to view it, just a simple touch of an app and a scroll through auditions is all it takes to find out what is happening where. Web 2.0 is easier to access now than it ever has been and i can only imagine it getting more complex over time. It is a really scary thought to think how far technology can go, will we all be using robots in 2030?! I see so many musicals (especially new musicals) making Facebook pages inviting thousands of people to like their page to get some publicity and to get bums on seats. It helps starting out shows as its so easy to get people interested just by sharing a video of the cast rehearsing could sell hundreds of tickets if its shared to the right people. I can't imagine how hard it would of been for new starting out shows 20 years ago how they would advertise and not be a flop without the use of web 2.0. reader 1 definitely got my brain going and i have a lot of answered questions and a lot more research to do. But i look forward to reading new articles and opinions and sharing them with you guys.

So what i have learnt from this.. the world really is at our fingertips!

First Youtube video!!

so here it is.. my first ever youtube video
this was so much harder than i thought it was gonna be
sorry for the awkwardness aha!
any comments would be great :)