Sue Watling – Page 7

PhD as art installation of unread texts; bring on #AcWriMo 2014

Sue Watling / October 17, 2014 / Academic Writing, PhD

The best thing about mess is its synonyms; clutter, litter, muddle, mishmash. Word pronunciation doesn’t get better than this. Sometimes life gets messy. Mine has gotten messy and the biggest mess of all is the Phd. A mess in the messiest sort of way.

There’s barely room for me on the settee or my feet on the coffee table. I”m surrounded with books of two kinds; open or closed, all unfinished. Ditto the papers; printed in haste with misplaced enthusiasm. Regretted later. Scribbled on pages 1, 2, sometimes 3 before the underlining and highlighting stops. I have scraps of notes everywhere. I’m good at notes and buying notebooks. These are my random ideas, written before they flit back where they came from. My PhD has become an art installation of unread literature while the NVivo laptop has dust on it, hidden under more piles of paper in the corner. A messy space is an unproductive space. The Phd is in a bad way; it needs resuscitation.

I’ve signed up for Academic Writing Month to get myself back on track.

It’s a write-a-thon by the PhD2Published team who along with The Thesis Whisperer provide social networking for doctoral researchers. The idea of #AcWriMo is you publicly declare your writing intentions, set your goals and get writing for a whole month with support provided by Facebook and Twitter. Academic writing is a problem no one talks about. Everyone needs to do it but not many find it easy or know about sources of support. There’s an assumption we pick up a pen and it all comes naturally. Writing is your alternative voice but while the ability to speak in public is recognised as a skill to be learned, writing in public rarely gets attention. #AcWriMo offers the opportunity to get something written and links up a network of people engaging with the same issues. The wisdom of crowds and all that can be a powerful motivator.

Here are some reasons why you should consider #AcWriMo …

You choose your subject; it might be an ongoing project which has got stuck or something completely new. Either way, it will create time you didn’t think you had.
Even if you don’t meet your goals, you’ll write more than you would have done otherwise.
Academic writing is a skill and like all crafts needs to be practiced; #AcWriMo is a safe place to explore the power of words and make progress.
It will lead to a sense of achievement; you’ll feel better afterwards than when you started
You are not alone! You get to experience the networking effect of Twitter and/or Facebook. Across the world there are people struggling to find time to write and #AcWriMo brings them all together.
A month is long enough to change attitudes and behaviours; taking part might lead to new and beneficial writing habits.
In the west the days are shortening, mornings and evenings are dark and it’s getting colder. What else will you do with all your extra time indoors?

I’m not yet decided on my writing subject. I have problems with boundaries as evidenced by the ways my PhD floats off and gets lost. It’s absent at the moment. If I want to bring it back my subject needs to be e-teaching and the absence of voices in the literature. Rhetoric and reality. Fiction and fact. Postmodern v critical realism. But I’d also like to do something around creativity and academic writing or reflection as literacy. Clearly the first challenge is to find a subject and I set myself the public target of doing this by next Friday. Gulp!

Cats, dogs, ducks and other animals…

Sue Watling / October 11, 2014October 12, 2014 / social impact of the Internet, social media, Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age (TELEDA)

The internet offers the ultimate in procrastination practice. Every now and then I wander off into the digital landscape of time-waste. This week’s BBC News Magazine was creepily apt but its much-delayed war on procrastination piece said nothing new. The quote from Douglas Adams ‘I love deadlines – I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by‘ and the list of procrastination app-busters were all familiar although Write or Die sounds a bit extreme – after all, its only will power – isn’t it?

Yet here I am browsing Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and posting cat pictures. Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age (TELEDA) starts 24th October and includes social media but that’s a weak excuse. I need to shut the laptop and do something different; instead, I’m thinking about cats.

What is it about furry, feathered creatures and the internet which has such universal appeal? Cats as well as dogs, ducks and other animals; do they really make a difference? I’ve seen a number of presentations which included deliberate and seemingly random images of animals. I’ve even been dabbling myself, revising my slides for promoting inclusive practice and adding cats and dogs in an attempt to grasp attention and make the points.

Cats seem to have the monopoly. If you’ve never Googled LOLcats you’re in for a treat or a nightmare depending on your preference. Then try dogs, ducks and giraffes. I made the last one up but couldn’t resist trying it and they do exist! There’s even a LOLcat which mentions Blackboard Learn….

…plus new variations on the old meme ‘On the Internet no one knows you’re a cat’…. or dog or whatever…

Sometimes you simply have to take the time to explore what’s out there. TELEDA’s social media learning block will encourage getting up close and personal with a number of social media platforms. Developed in response to requests and conversations, it starts with the issue of online identity. Participants will be encouraged to visit and complete their university staff profile as well as join a professional networking site like LinkedIn, Academia.edu or ResearchGate. A TELEDA Twitter account @TELEDALincoln has been set up and there’s an existing TELEDA Pinterest Board http://uk.pinterest.com/suewatling/teaching-and-learning-in-a-digital-age Blogs will also be explored, along with Wikipedia and Google, but there are no plans at the present time for any cats.

Digging digital dirt; the times they are a changing…

Sue Watling / October 4, 2014 / digital exclusion, digital inclusion, digital literacies, EDEU, social impact of the Internet, Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age (TELEDA)

Sshhh….don’t say it loud but accessibility is a dirty word. No one wants to talk about it. The subject of inclusive digital resources raises eyebrows and elicits sighs. The unspoken thought ‘here she goes again’ hangs palpably in the air.

This week I’ve been digging the digital dirt. Issues are coming to the surface, into the light and do you know what? People are listening. Something has changed. The time might have come. IT Matters. Let’s talk digital.

Information Technology enables participation. Digital data has the edge over printed text. It’s uniquely flexible; size, shape, colour and contrast can all be changed. The alchemy of text-to-speech and speech-to-text is a modern miracle. There’s no technical reason why anyone should not be able to access digital means of information and communication. Barriers to access are socially constructed. The early web pioneers knew this:

‘… it is critical that the web be usable by anyone regardless of individual capabilities and disabilities.’ (Berners Lee, 1997)

‘…if we succeed making web accessibility the norm rather than the exception, this will benefit not only the disability community but the entire population.’ (Dardailler, 1997)

The damage caused to digital democracy by Microsoft’s Graphical User Interface (GUI) and hand-operated mouse has disenfranchised millions. Attention to inclusion hasn’t kept up. When the platforms of the public sphere are digital, without the means of participation you are excluded. I know because it happened to me. I have Uvietis; a genetic condition with treatment which involves blurred vision. This is how I learned about inaccessibility and became involved with a local organisation for people with sight loss. Dodgy eyes showed me the reality of digital exclusion, and the sadness of realising although there are a few who really care, too few is not enough to make a difference.

Digital divides are complex and multi-layered. They cross all social strata but concentrate where disempowerment already exists. Evidence suggests if you are socially excluded you are most likely to be digitally excluded as well. This is a uniquely 21st century discrimination but like all opportunities for social change, the bare bones are already there, waiting for the catalyst to give them shape. Drivers for change can arrive unexpectedly. Here are some of the conversations going on at Lincoln which might just make change happen:

Government changes in the DSA (Disabled Students Allowance); teaching resources will need to be reviewed to ensure they fill gaps created by loss of funds for technology to support learning.
Internationalisation; language barriers can be reduced by providing teaching materials online, in particular lecture content which can be revisited and revised.
Flipping the classroom; providing lecture content for students to access online and using contact time for more interactive teaching activities, supports inspirational teaching and the student engagement agenda.
Digitisation; not always fully accessible and raising awareness of restrictions imposed by Publishers is creating interest in how other Libraries are dealing with this.
EDEU; the new unit’s plans for integrating digital confidence and capabilities into Teacher Education and CPD programmes calls for a framework which can and should be inclusive in design and delivery.
Blackboard; plans for introducing baseline templates (e.g. Starter, Intermediate and aspirational Gold) could and should include attention to accessibility.
Corporate Identity; opportunity for UL to become known as a digitally confident and inclusive university.

There is more. This summer I coordinated institutional wide responses to the UCISA Digital Capabilities survey which reinforced – like the UCISA 2014 report on Technology Enhanced Learning – lack of time and resources as the key barrier to developing digital practice.

This is where EDEU can help. EDEU has a new educational development and enhancement team By the end of the year there will be six of us to talk to about digital divides and exclusions. We can scaffold and support; help with developing alternative formats for multimedia and ensure accessible text and images. Get in touch. Let us know you’re interested in using virtual learning environments to enhance your teaching. We are EDEU and inclusion is our middle name.

I’ve been digging in the digital dirt and coming up with clean hands. It feels good to have people listening. The times they are a changing – indeed.

Berners Lee, T (1997)World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Launches Web Accessibility Initiative. WAI press release 7 April 1997. www.w3.org/Press/WAI-Launch.html

(Dardailler, D 1997 Telematics Applications Programme TIDE Proposal. Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) http://www.w3.org

Scientists sneak Bob Dylan lyrics into articles as part of long-running bet http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/sep/29/swedish-cientists-bet-bob-dylan-lyrics-research-papers

Dog ate blog and other stories…

Sue Watling / September 27, 2014 / EDEU, PhD, Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age (TELEDA)

Guardian Witness invites photographs on the theme of a ‘Day in the Life of a PhD Student‘ I sent in this photo of my floor. A sign of the shrine my floor has become to the Phd. Virginia Wolfe famously called for ‘a room of one’s own’. Often missed is the rest of the sentence ‘A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.’ JK Rowling’s story of writing Harry Potter in a coffee shop with free heating suggests neither is totally essential, or maybe that’s writing of a different kind. In the absence of money, I do have a room and it has been taken over by my work.

Tsundoku is the Japanese word for buying books and letting them pile up unread. Tsundoku is Me. It isn’t just the floor – there are piles on the cupboard, under the table, beside my bed. I’m a bookaholic. My name is Sue. If numbers left by the back door I wouldn’t notice. Show me a spreadsheet and I break out in a sweat. Give me words and I’m happy.

Recently I’ve been pe tsundoku - japanese word for buying books and letting them pile up unread persuadinga fellow part-time ‘PhD-er’ to blog. Saying it helps to formulate ideas and structure thoughts. The art of reflection is a core learning tool and I’m not sure we promote it enough because blog routines are effective ways to cultivate the reflective mind. Give it a regular outing. Typically, I didn’t find time to blog this Friday. The dog ate my blog or the internet swallowed my work.

We all need warning signs and for me, an absence of Friday blog post says something’s out of kilter. It’s a busy time. Forget January. New year is September. The establishment of EDEU (Educational Development and Enhancement Unit) means a new team with a new remit. Different faces and spaces and routines to learn like kettle etiquette and tea towel management. There are the open-office conundrums; air con versus heating and blinds up – blinds down plus important issues like the art of entering a tiny toilet without activating a misplaced hand dryer which wooshes into life unexpectedly before you’ve even shut the door.

We’re on the edge. Relocated to the heart of the student village, above the launderette where molecules of fabric softener free float through the air. There are trees and masses of bushes by the railway line, all changing colour. Across the road is the Fos Google Satellite image showing the location of EDEU at One Campus Way sdyke with a tow path where I can walk by the water. I like it. But this week I didn’t find time to blog.

I had a plan. It was going to be about the Graduate Teachers Education Programme. How the room in the engineering building had rows of benches fixed to the floor supporting a didactive teaching style; a pedagogy of transmission. I would compare this with the invisible e-teacher; the subject of my research paper for ASCILITE14 but instead I was catching up with emails, writing up the actions from the first VLE-Operations Group (Action 1. Change name) and responding to Blackboard queries. In this new EDEU shaped world I’ve been escalated to the realm of the ‘tough ones’ and they do take up time.

So when is a blog post not a blog post? Only when it’s empty. Blogs are forgiving places. They don’t really care what you say so long as you say something and in the process, you’ll nearly always discover a different way of seeing or being which wasn’t there before. Try it and see. Now, excuse me please, apart from immersion in the back-end of Blackboard, I also have a few books to read 🙂

HEFCE we have a problem; concept threshold but not troublesome knowledge.

Sue Watling / September 19, 2014 / digital exclusion, digital inclusion, digital scholarship, equality and diversity, social impact of the Internet, Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age (TELEDA)

It started with a book.

Social Media and Social Work Education is a valuable and timely publication. Sadly, for me, any mention of digital exclusion was absent. Social media can be a powerful learning tool but users must be aware of its dichotomous nature. I couldn’t find any reference to digital divides, assistive technology or the need for inclusive approaches. This was disappointing. It’s ironic the book was published by Critical Publishing when critique around digital exclusion was missing.

It’s been several years since I developed dodgy eyes needing treatment which blurs my vision, relocating me in a foggy world where text and images are indistinct and my capacity for online communication diminished. The first time it happened I thought I could still use a computer. But I couldn’t. Accessible digital content relies on inclusive design and the inaccessibility of online content was a shock. The Franklin adage “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” was never truer. My real life experience of digital exclusion led to the soapbox I’ve dragged around ever since.

The Social Work profession is all about difference, in particular through marginalisation and disempowerment. Evidence suggests if you’re socially excluded you’re likely to be digitally excluded making social work education ideally placed to highlight the complexity of digital divides. In a ‘digital by default’ society, where public health and welfare services have adopted a digital first policy, this virtual exclusion must be taken seriously.

Over the past few years there has been a dilution of attention to inclusive practice. In 2006, Jane Seale wrote E-Learning and Disability in Higher Education: Accessibility Research and Practice, where technology is described as a double edged sword, capable of enabling and disabling participation unless inclusive practice is followed. The Mobius Strip of a VLE and social media tools – they are both inside and outside at the same time. In 2011, a special edition of the Journal Research and Education Technology (Vol 14, Issue 1) included Holistic approaches to e-learning accessibility (Phipps and Kelly) a baseline paper for inclusive education and Using multimedia to enhance the accessibility of the learning environment for disabled students: reflections from the Skills for Access Project, (Sloan, Stratford and Gregor) about a now absent website for supporting accessible multimedia. The loss of Skills for Access is another loss for campaigners of accessible digital content. The truth is still out there but you have to search for it. It’s getting harder to find.

Recently the DSA has been changed.

TechDis is to be dismantled.

The significance of these two events has barely rippled the surface of higher education.

Government initiatives have shifted from quantity of access to quality. Alongside all this dilution of critical awareness is the uncritical persistence of the myth of the digital native. How can there be a problem when the next generation consist of computer savvy whizz kids?

What is going on here?

Why is the assistive technology of digital democracy so damn expensive and difficult to use?

Why is exclusion from digital ways of working such an unacknowledged discrimination?

It has to be part of a wider discourse around diversity. Over the past 20 years there’s been a shift from equality politics and celebration of difference to a politics of normalisation. The internet is the silent arena where the war is being won. Power has become aligned with internet access. To be digitally excluded is to be silenced and made invisible.

The dreams of democracy of early internet pioneers have broken. It simnply isn’t happening.

As virtual avatars we have the potential for disrupting dominant discourse, of connecting with like-minded people and creating new digital alliances for resistance and empowerment. Core to this is raising awareness of digital divides and exclusions. It’s a concept threshold but not particularly troublesome knowledge. Is it?

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Holistic approaches to e-learning accessibility, by Lawrie Phipps and Brian Kelly;

Using multimedia to enhance the accessibility of the learning environment for disabled students: reflections from the Skills for Access Project, by David Sloan, John Stratford and Peter Gregor

EDEU shaped futures: development is another word for change

Sue Watling / September 12, 2014 / EDEU, Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age (TELEDA)

There’s a lot of development going on. We are EDEU, a new Educational Development Unit. Our job titles include the words Development and Developers. We are Staff Development and Continuing and Professional Development. In the literature of professional support for higher education, development can be prefixed with academic and learning as well as educational but what does the development part mean? Who is developing what? Trying to pin down meaning often reveals the slippiness of language. The closer you get to the words the more they shape-shift. The term educational development is loose and while I appreciate the flexibility of open endedness, some starting points are worth having.

The literature of SEDA, the Staff and Educational Development Association, refers to academic development and the enhancement of learning, teaching and professional development http://www.seda.ac.uk/ In a 2009 paper Forms of knowing and academic development practice, Sue Clegg writes how Academic Development is the ‘primary site though which the ‘subject’ of ‘teaching and learning in higher education’ has come into being.’ Against a background of changes in higher education, debates around the purpose of the university and the contested identities of teaching and research, she describes how academic development slipped in as a ‘defined set of practices and epistemologies’, taking on ‘…a more strategic role in reshaping institutional provision to fit more closely with government priorities’ with academic developers finding themselves ‘…positioned precariously between senior management and academic staff.’ Clegg 2009 p407. I prefer the analogy of bridge to precarious perch but with EDEU’s remit including implementation of the teaching, learning and digital education plans – plan being another word for strategy – an element of inbetween-ness can be identified.

At EDEU’s first AwayDay the eclectic nature of our existing and future work was revealed. Using the cool tool Ketso, we mapped out the constituent parts.

Technology Enhanced learning branch

A key outcome was the need to identify support for digital technology as scholarly rather than techie. Clegg writes how research into higher education is essential to understand academic practice. This is particularly relevant with internet technologies. We need to know where we came from and how we got to the places we are today. The use of VLE benefits from critical reflection. Not only should educational engagement be pedagogically driven, it must be informed through critical engagement with the published evidence base.

The Ed Dev team decided supporting a DIY approach to VLE, one which provides scaffolded learning, rather than DIFY (Do It For You) is the way the way to go. Narrowing divides between those who support the networks and those who use them for teaching is still about drives and drivers- you have to know your plugs from your sockets -but it’s also about the wider emotional impact of change, in particular from a traditionally face-to-face practice to an online one.

Words are a bit like technology. They mask what’s going on underneath. Reflection on the slippage between educational and academic – when paired with development – is ultimately pedantic because at the end of the day, it’s the definition of development which matters and this is about informed support for change. EDEU started with difference in terms of faces, spaces and working practice and there’s going to be more of it ahead because an EDEU shaped future is where development is another word for change.

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Clegg, S. (2009) Forms of Knowing and academic development practice. Studies in Higher Education, vol 34, no 4, 403-416

EDEU Week One; moving to the edge, space shaping and team making

Sue Watling / September 5, 2014 / EDEU, social impact of the Internet, Uncategorized

The National Centre for Food Manufacture (NCFM) at Holbeach was in the news this week The NCFM hosted one of a series of workshops on PicknPack dissemination. Funded by the European Union Seventh Framework Programme, PicknPack is a flexible robotic system developed to automate food processing and packaging.

The role of food packaging is a thankless one. Designed to be functional and attractive, it ends up in the bin, destined for landfill, but I guess you’re not meant to think of it that way.

Travelling between Lincoln and Holbeach is to journey through a showcase of local production. In spring the fields are full of daffodils and tulips; in September there are leeks, sweetcorn and cabbages, always cabbages. Colours range from wheaten gold to ploughed-earth chocolate brown; all under the broad, deep Lincolnshire skies.

This week two Digital Education Developers joined EDEU and it was a pleasure to include a trip to the NCFM as part of their induction. Chavan Kissoon was e-learning guru for Work Based and Distance Learning in the Business School at the university and Marcus Elliot joins us from Grimsby Institute. Chavan will work with the College of Social Science and Marcus with the College of Science. I’m still waiting for my DED (apologies for the acronym) for the College of Arts. A third Senior Lecturer in Educational Development or SLED (we did slightly better with that one) will also be joining EDEU. By January 2015 we should be complete.

The move to the edge was eased by the facilities at One Campus Way; continual supplies of coffee and a special welcome from EDEU Director Dr Karin Crawford; for picky eaters like me the fruit was welcome 🙂

Week One has been good. The rest of the team, Dan Derricott and the Student Engagers, arrive on Monday. Next week is our first full team Awayday. EDEU is taking shape.

That’s me in the corner. The door to the meeting room is locked making the space into a 3-sided room.

There’s no direct light shining on my screens and I have my own bookcase (already filled with a cunning plan to encourage book returns)

Duck and Spider have arrived. I’ve yet to introduce the wider EDEU team to the phenomena of Rubber Duck Debugging That will come. As for Spider, it’s 14 years old and interesting to reflect on the changes since I first built the Achievers in Excellence website in 2000. In 2014 we weave with modules and plugins from content management systems rather than direct html. I’m left wondering if any other generation has seen so many changes happen so quickly. EDEU are in an excellent place to take the university’s remit for digital education forward.

We are EDEU; the Educational Development and Enhancement Unit at the University of Lincoln

Sue Watling / August 29, 2014August 29, 2014 / EDEU

You can tell it’s the last week in August. The phone is quiet. No scam emails. Even the comments from mightyviagara and powershower dot org saying they just dropped by and my blog posts are awesome – have stopped. All is quiet. Falsely so. There’s a sense of movement under the surface, an awareness of imminent change. Next week it will start. Staff will return. The bubbles are there, waiting to burst into Blackboard enquiries; I can’t see my sites, will you enrol me, where is my…how do I…..please can you help?

From now on, requests for assistance need to go through the ICT Service Desk not individuals. This represents a change in practice but one which makes sense. Here is a way to track the length and breadth of the support side of our work. The quick and the complex; the easy and the more challenging shades of assistance. We haven’t been good at monitoring what we do and as a result, much of our work is invisible.

Also, we are moving…

My boxes are packed, I’m ready to go. I’ve locked the office for the very last time. Goodbye Bridge House. Portocabin Heaven. Don’t slam the door or the floor will shake. I’ll miss you. Too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter but everything else was fine. Hello One Campus Way. Out on the edge. Above the launderette. Every move takes me further from the centre. On Monday 1st September I’m hoping my computer will be attached to the network and phone working, so I can unpack ready to welcome our new staff. Introduce them to Blackboard. They’ll be getting to know each other over the next few weeks as staff and then students arrive.

September is always a special time. This is what higher education is about. New beginnings, the promise of learning and all that entails; raising awareness, critical thinking, reflecting on practice, on prior experience or a difficult phrase in a book or paper. Asking questions. What does that mean? Why did that happen? Who said that? I came into higher education as a mature student. Pre MS Windows – computers had arrived but they ran on DOS and there was no internet. It wasn’t that long ago! I’ll never forget the pains and joys. Queuing up to enrol on my very first day with no idea of what lay ahead. The sense of discovery as I found the library, had my first lectures, met other students juggling family and multiple commitments. My first degree was a challenge but one of the best things I ever did. It’s a privilege to work in an environment which offers such potentially life changing opportunities.

September is the new year, time for resolutions and plans. There will be changes but positive ones. I’ll have further to walk – will need comfy shoes – and although we remain a central unit, we’re each aligned to a college. I’m with the College of Arts – which everyone says suits me – I hope that bodes well!

We are EDEU. The Educational Development and Enhancement Unit. Most of the team are pictured here http://edeu.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/edeu-staff/ We have an embyronic website http://edeu.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk, our own mailbox edeu@lincoln.ac.uk and twitter moniker @LincolnEDEU. We have arrived. Although not formally launching until October, from next week we are a team, located in the same place, working towards shared goals for fostering excellence and innovation in student education and engagement, supporting academic staff in developing their teaching practice and programmes and supporting professional services staff in working with students to enhance the quality of services.

The future is bright. The future is EDEU shaped. Bring on the new academic year 🙂

Lincoln Labyrinth Festival; they say God works in mysterious ways

Sue Watling / August 24, 2014August 24, 2014 / Uncategorized

During August, a labyrinth was chalked onto the stone floor on Lincoln Cathedral and visitors invited to walk the twisting path into the centre and out again. In the arches on the right were a series of information panels. My connection with labyrinths goes back many years. The interest led to Walking the Labyrinth, set up to document their use within higher education, in particular as tool for learning development. What we know about labyrinths is contentious and for me this is part of the attraction. Because they’ve kept their secrets around their origin and use so well, they have become a vehicle for a number of different interpretations.

When I wrote the text for the labyrinth festival, my aim was to bring together what is known based on what can be evidenced. I wanted to emphasise a labyrinth is not a maze, despite what the Oxford and other dictionaries say, and to reveal how the symbol is old, more ancient than the church itself. I thought I was writing with accuracy and respect but with hindsight I think I may have been naive. The experience is helping me rethink my research, in particular how we know the world. The ologies of Ont and Epist, which I’ve struggled with since the beginning, are best understood through application to daily life.

From the start I wanted the panels to narrate the story of the labyrinth, step by step, from past to present. In my mind the words would run from top to bottom and be supported with appropriate – but secondary – images. Instead the images were given priority and the text squeezed into a block; positioned too small and low to be easily read while the plan to reproduce this as an information leaflet to take away didn’t happen. Other panels, laid out in the style I had imagined, were more accessible and stressed the connection between the labyrinth and christianity. Reading these, I saw how my text could appear as if I was trying to do the opposite.

Critical Realist Roy Bhaskar (1978) wrote about an ontological distinction between three domains of reality: empirical (observed reality), actual (interpreted reality) and causal (generative reality or mechanisms of change). We bring to empirical situations our existing knowledge which in turn shapes our expectations; but knowledge is fallible and constantly open to change. I walk into Lincoln Cathedral with the expectation I’ll be surrounded with design appropriate to the Christian religion. This interpretation derives from the sum experiences of my life (my actual domain of reality) which are reinforced whenever my expectations are confirmed. The labyrinth text introduced a causal reality i.e. something different and possibly unexpected within the context of the cathedral. For me labyrinths can be both secular and sacred and I set out to bring the two dimensions together. I don’t feel I succeeded but maybe I have a better understanding of why this was so.

To often we can’t ‘see’ from the inside. It takes the alchemical process of reflection on action to produce insight. With hindsight I may have been blinkered by my own ‘actual’ reality. Excited by the possibilities of promoting the labyrinth symbol within the cathedral walls, and able to rationalise the secular/sacred duality within my own mind, I failed to grasp how this might constitute a challenge – however small – to the institutional ideology of the church. The reduction of a message which was outside of doctrine – albeit in my mind running parallel – diluted the opportunity to pass on this knowledge.

Regardless of the faux pas-panels, the highlight for me was the central position of the labyrinth itself; precisely chalked across the nave, and seeing people take the time to walk the circular paths. Solvitur Ambulando. It is solved by walking. There was a moment when the sun shone through the stained glass windows and cast coloured patterns across the stone floor, lapping onto the outer paths of the labyrinth. I’m not sure I’ve been in a church when this has happened in such a spectacular manner. Maybe God was working in a mysterious way after all.

Putting myself out there, so to speak, into digital space

Sue Watling / August 22, 2014August 22, 2014 / #BbWorld14, social impact of the Internet, social media, Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age (TELEDA)

Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age is back in October. This is Part Two; a short in-service course (24 weeks, 30 M level cats, @300 learning hours). It contains two learning blocks; social media for teaching and learning and e-resources; developing and using online content.

To help prepare, I’ve been putting myself out there, so to speak, into digital space. Apart from this blog, I was a dabbler. Facebook for photos, a tweet here and there and a bit of collaborative working on Google Drive was the extent of my S&M adventures. TELEDA1 stayed within Blackboard for communication; one reason being when it comes to group work, social media can be exclusive. Not everyone wants to sign up and engage. TELEDA2 is different. It’s being advertised with the expectation colleagues will use Twitter and create a profile on LinkedIn or other ‘professional’ networking site like Academic.edu or ResearchGate. It will be a challenging e-teaching experience. I hope I’m better prepared since I took SM more seriously.

It started with BBWorld14 in July; summarised in a series of reflective blog posts* on the experience of one of the biggest education conferences in the world. Using Storify I created a synthesis of my social media usage https://storify.com/suewatling/bbworld14-sue-watling-1

During August I’ve taken Twitter seriously, with some useful outcomes. My numbers of retweets, favourites and followers have increased and my advice on surviving the write up of a PhD, begun by the Guardian Higher Education @GdnHigherEd, was included in #AcademiaObscura’s Finish That PhD in Twelve Steps https://storify.com/AcademiaObscura/finish-that-phd I’m in there at Number 6 with the meaningful advice Don’t Diet!

So what have I learned? Focusing on Twitter, where the tweet limit of 140 characters or less makes it one for the more challenging platforms, here is my top twitter-advice for anyone wanting to adopt it as a professional networking tool.

Using Twitter takes time, imagination and confidence. That’s it!

It might not sound much but the learning curve was steeper than I expected. The first thing I noticed was I could tweet from home but not the office. To start with I simply forgot. To be consistent meant a shift in on-campus working behaviours to incorporate Twitter into daily routines. It takes time to follow, retweet, say something meaningful in a sentence – this is where the imagination comes it. You need a collection of aphorisms, proverbs or even terrible puns to tweak and adapt if you want to get noticed and confidence is required in buckets. It might just be me but linking to other people – like cold connecting – still feels a bit like gatecrashing. The internet is a mirror and using social media reflects your professional online identity. To be a non-user is to be invisible and risks exclusion in an increasingly digital society. It’s best to take control of the medium before it takes control of you. Benefits include discovery and connections which can be really useful. Ultimately social media is like the Lottery, you have to be in it to win it!

I can’t wait to get started with TELEDA2 🙂

* Blog posts from July synthesising my social media adventures.