Intern Aware Charter Campaign this week!

As some of you may know I am working with the first year MED1002 class in Media on the Intern Aware Charter campaign - links below - we are going to four university campuses to gather signatures for the campaign - Kings, London Met, UEL and Goldsmiths this week - so I will be quite busy during the day. I will be on my mobile if you need me. I will catch up at the weekend if we miss each other.
March 10-1 - materials for coursework will be up on line around this time.

http://www.internaware.org.uk

http://www.internaware.org

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8AzJpSjNjA&feature=youtu.be

Campus Session 1 continued - what we did to explore the tops of 'love'

Right so here are some examples for the 12th Feb campus session 1 with Ruth, Kym and Sophie (also look on their blogs for more info). Others who came on the 13th Feb might also have put info up about the session.

The group chose the idea of 'love'. We talked about how ideas - we read a theory about the idea that the definition of love has changed in modern societies - Here is the quote we used from someone else's paper (permission given to use) about the 'undateables' http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-undateables series:

Beck and Beck-Gernsheim commented upon the new definition of love caused by the fracturing of social bonds within society caused by individualisation, stating; “It is no longer possible to pronounce in some binding way what family, marriage, parenthood, sexuality or love mean, what they should or could be; rather these vary in substance, norms and morality from individual to individual and from relationship to relationship”[1].

---

[1] Beck, U, Beck-Gernscheim, E, The Normal Chaos of Love

Then the group did a brainstorming session with a mind map - identified a particular facet of 'love'. In this case  business related - online dating - as a form of love.

Here is the mind map of the preliminary unpacking exercise of 'love'  and a close-up of the focus chosen for further investigation.

 in this case online dating - then we googled it with key words. BUT… Remember you need to go past the BIG key words and the first commercially linked hits...

You need more focused key words in order to find sources - remember there are some sources which are authored - some with more authority (peer-reviewed journals) than others.

So look for key words like 'online dating'.

Then we used Summon in the MDX library (go to this under MyLearning library section). This searching agent looks at the resources that are available within the university.

It works a lot like Google - but you can tick the boxes to say you just want journal articles… then we looked to find an article online dating and found one about EHarmony!!! (Kym spotted it!).

EHARMONY: MORE THAN TRADITIONAL INTERNET DATING 

Atul Gupta, Lynchburg College

Rebecca Murtha, Lynchburg College

Niharika Patel, Lynchburg College Journal of the International Academy for Case Studies, Volume 18, Number 1, 2012

It is not always so easy - sometimes you have to search a bit to find other sources that have talked about your topic.

So an idea as big as love needs to be unpacked and smaller elements focused on in order to develop thinking around a more specific topic. This process happens in all the modules. This is the critical reflection - where expertise and ideas from your experience but also other people's experience (both practitioner and expertise that do research about the topic) can inform and theorise what you are thinking.

 Good luck with exploring your own topics and 'digital literacy' in terms of searching for ideas related to your topics! Love is in the world... 

Campus Session 1 Love and Learning: How to think about ideas for academic work?

What do you love about learning? 

That is what BAPP Arts asks you in different ways isn't it? What did you love about different areas that you studied? How do you think about the process of thinking? How does this impact on what you do?

The love of learning is lifelong as well as spontaneous. For me, the meaning of learning has changed and it is this newer concept of learning that is built into the programme.

Here is a quote from Jarvis, Holford and Griffin about why we talk about learning instead of education.

If education seems less appropriate in conditions of postmodernity, why is the focus increasingly on learning?…

There are, first of all, the consequences for our conceptions of knowledge itself. Postmodernists say the 'grand' or 'meta' narratives of knowledge and belief (in sciences, ideology or religion) are being replaced by a much more fragmentary and relativistic idea of truth. The educational curriculum was based on 'disciplines', or discrete bodies of knowledge, such as history, geography, mathematics and so on. The teacher's role was to be expert in a discipline, explaining it to the student. But now the disciplines are being replaced by more reflexive, pragmatic and experiential approaches, which place the individual learning much more at the heart of the learning process. In postmodern conditions the teacher, intellectual or 'expert' , instead of being the 'source' of knowledge, has merely the role of communicator or facilitator (Bauman, 1987). Educators are less and less in a position to determine the curriculum of education. They are cast much more in the role of helping people to learning effectively - in short, they are becoming technicians, rather than authorities.

Second, the content of learning - the 'curriculum' - which used to be determined by the universal structures of knowledge and the authority of the teacher, is being transformed. it has become a mere commodity in a society based on market principles of consumer sovereignty. Postmodern thinkers stress how far society nowadays reflects the supremacy of consumption over production (Baudrillard, 1998; Featherstone, 1990), and of style and symbolism over content and form. One of the distinguishing characteristics of postmodern analysis is its tendency to 'de-differentiation'. This means noticing the erosion between the distinct categories of modernism, such as disjoins between high and popular culture. All such distinctions, once crucial to the discipline structure of education, become arbitrary and subjective. They reflect only individual tastes and styles. In other words  individual learners rather that 'authorities' and 'experts' - or teachers - are the arbiters of taste and significance.

Jarvis, Holford and Griffin (1998) The Theory and Practice of Learning, London: Kogan Page, p. 18-19)

Two ideas or concepts that need to be explored as a way of developing your own strategies to engage with the programme…

So for a bit of fun - let's see where the ideas of love and learning take us in an exercise in loving learning - or learning to love - the first campus session of the Spring study period conundrum (cue music for Countdown)!!! 

learning = noun or learning = verb
love = verb or love = noun

What is learning?
What is love?

Okay how to do about this - how do you think (theorise) about ideas? 

We have 2 examples to use for the session… so let's make a start...

Huge! both ideas absolutely huge! Too large to think about… but what if you had to?

Let's do some brainstorming/free association to show how to begin to unpack the topic.
Let's take love first - it must be easier - maybe?

Photo Creative Commons by Tristan Schmurr

How would you go about thinking about love?

Valentine's Day (does this mean chocolates?)
love for what?
love for yourself?
what does it have to do with work?
Is love about passion? are you passionate about what you do?
is it love of an event or about people, places or things?
is it love of an art form? of what you do? Can you show love as a non-verbal gesture or mime or movement ? or is there a sound or music that signifies love?
Are there stories that tell about love?
Does it fade?
How do we know the stories?
how can you visualise love?
does the idea of love change - depending on age? culture? society?
has this concept been defined before? 

If you had to develop or unpack the idea of love - really quickly - I mean really really quickly because it is a huge topic!!! 

1. What are some ways to link this idea to what your know? or want to know about?
  
2. Could you actually develop some of the ideas about love into an area of thinking (for a blog, for planning an inquiry, for drilling into some of the ideas that you need to analyse)?

think PRACTICE > THEORY

So onto the next one...

MDX website 

learning as an idea?
wow! huge 
what type of learning?
self-reflection? 
Learning a skill? a technique? a way of thinking about a particular discipline? 
is it education?
how can you visualise learning?
Are there stories that tell about learning?
is learning work? is learning play? is learning experience?
does the concept of learning change -  with each generation? over time?
has this concept been defined before? 

If you had to develop or unpack the idea of learning - really quickly - I mean really really quickly because it is a huge topic!!! 

1. What are some ways to link this idea to what your know? or want to know about?  
2. Could you actually develop some of the ideas about love into an area of thinking (for a blog, for planning an inquiry, for drilling into some of the ideas that you need to analyse)?

think PRACTICE & THEORY



to be continued…

induction slideshare - apologies for lateness

Induction bapp 28.1. 14 from Paula Nottingham

The Sound of Musicals on Channel 4

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-sound-of-musicals/4od

What do you love about learning?

Welcome back and welcome to the course!

I have spoken to most of the new people who have joined us formally as the Programme Leader of BAPP (Arts) but in my own voice - it's great to be starting up again.

What do you love about learning?

To coincide with the 'I love Middlesex campaign' ...

SO

What do you love about learning?

What is learning?

What is love?

Comments if anyone is out there...

Just saw this blog - interesting! http://georginasproject.wordpress.com

Does it say something about the love of learning?