Out of the Swamp

Oyez – oyez, Coonara’s website is up and I can upload the newsletter at last. I have sent it off and am waiting with bated breath to see if it will work or not. The webquest I sent works like a charm but I did that one in Dreamweaver not Publisher so we shall have to wait and see.

I am looking forward to the holidays so I can get going on this and other projects. Its amazing how they are are all tying in tigether. After my discussion with L yesterday I am excited about the way she sees a vision for our community. Always so stimulating to talk with her – my mind gets stretched every time!

I am busy visiting students on placement so will have to defer things until next week now so that I can give them my full attention. Such a joy to go out and see our students performing so well in the workplace.

The Circles meeting helped me to crystalise some thoughts on my aims but I am still a little unsure about whether I want the project to explore tutor isolation or introducing them to new technology or both, or if they can be tied together to reach the same end. My head tells me to just choose one and concentrate on that aspect in order to make the project manageable, but my gut feeling is that it is important for Coonara to find out about both. A decision has to be made in the next few days because I have to get going with it. It is possible that the technology aspect will be easier as I have already surveyed tutors about it this year so I have some data already. It is true that Coonara is strongly heading in that direction especially since my discussion with the Team Leader who said precisely that – more data for me. I feel better now that I have come to grips more with the method of setting up and working with the Wiki particularly. I feel confiodent I could explain how it works to other tutors.

I have suggested in the newsletter that tutors have a meeting in the holidays to talk about the project and for me to listen to their views about participating. I abxolutely do not want anyone to feel they have to participate because I know already through conversation and from the survey that some do not feel very comfortable with the idea as yet. As far as I am concerned that is fine – no pressure to join at all.

My biggest headache is how I am going to get the newsletter out – for goodness sake – it hasd been done for weeks now. What is holding me back? Only my desire to make it an electronic newsletter and my frustration about not being able to get it onto Coonara’s server. It is mainly my lack of knowledge in this area so I have a couple of choices.

1. Scrap the electronic newsletter idea and just make it into a Word or Publisher document. This will probably require me to do a fair bit of changing and altering stuff and could be a bit time-consuming even though cut and paste is available. Why will it take so much time??? Groan – because I am a perfectionist and want to have it perfect. Solution – go with the flow and just get it out not perfect.
2. Find someone to quickly help me sort out the server issues and get it uploaded and sent out ASAP as it is. This could also take time. I f I honestly look at this alternative I see it is because I really want to know how to do it and I have made the newsletter as perfect as I can with all links working and I like the look of it. The challenge is gnawing away at me and I am determined to find out. However, this could potentially be destructive to the carrying out of the project which needs to be done ASAP.

I will wait one more day and try again with the electronic idea then if I can’t get it happening I will make it into a plain Publisher document and send it out as a .pdf

To-day I am feeling a bit more hopeful. I think I might just put up the site and let tutors suggest what they want me to do with it – far more democratic that way. Only problem is – which site? I don’t know if the wiki will do it – I am leaning towards a discussion board type of place but what?

Also feeling miffed about the electronic newsletter – it is now too big to email so what to do with that??? Honestly – the path of progress never runs smooth (to mix a metaphor or two).

I am feeling better after having the flu – took a long time to get back to my old self. New Learning Practices meeting with Delia, Josie Rose etc went well. Now I jave to present at the seminar – would rather not have to do that – I want more time to sort this out.

Looking forward to the Learning Circles meeting tomorrow. I have not heard back from Merryn but no doubt she will have (hopefully) some pointers for me on the day. I know my Aims and Objectives are not right yet. I think I am trying to put too much into them – must try to keep it simple.

The EdNa group on New Learning Technologies is useful. I am trying to attend as many of the online events as I can but work gets in the way. Oh well – that’s life!

Still struggling over the Aims. Better to send it off as it is and get some objective feedback from our wonderful mentor Merryn. Reflecting back on creating the blog & wiki – that was fun! Bit of a learning curve but I am enjoying it. Getting a lot of ideas and links to interesting sites through the Online Mentoring Group who are talking about MLearning mostly at the moment but it is all useful stuff..

I have also finished the electronic newsletter for the tutors to let them know about the wiki site and how they can contribute. Just waiting on an article from the team leader to go in it and then I can send it off. Another first – never created an HTML newsletter before – amazing what you can do when you play around on the computer! After the newsletter goes out, maybe things will start to happen.

Well here I am and at this stage my ideas seem to be crystallising somewhat. I now think that the project is looking more like one on reflection more than mentoring although I think there is room for that as well. I spent quite a bit of time trying to refine my aims. Are they still too broad? Merryn has asked to see the draft so I will do that as soon as I can so that she can comment on it. Maybe that will help me a bit. Having the flu has certainly slowed me down. Today is the first day in the past week when my head has been clear enough to work on the project.

Suddenly I want to put flexible delivery into the project as well. Where did that come from? It seems to fit but maybe I am trying to do too many things.I really think tutors would respond to a place where they can reflect, discuss, argue etc where they can do it from home, All of us are out two or three nights a week as well as most days and some of us Saturdays as well. Extra meetings to reflect on our practice isn’t going to go down too well so maybe this idea of doing it online will work.

At this late stage in the proceedings, I think I am getting the hang of how to use this blog in conjunction with the wiki for my Learning Circles Action Research project. The blog will be my journal of the journey I am taking towards fulfilling the action research and the wiki will constitute the “The Project”. I have been journalling on paper up until now, so I will just transfer it all to here and continue. My first entry was on ?Date after the very first meeting at the Rendezvous in Flinders St.

7th July 2006

I came away from that meeting feeling very excited and quite inspired although still quite in the dark about the topic for my project. Such a jumble of thoughts swirling around in my brain. Too much to think about, too little time to think about it. Feeling a bit daunted by the fact that I am so busy in my work at the moment but I know this is a really good thing for me. It will make me stop and reflect on what I am doing. Interesting people at the meeting and the support staff are very inspiring.
12th July

I have approached several tutors at Coonara about the project but I can see they are all flat chat and will not be able to help me do the the project. The best I can expect I guess is that they will contribute to whatever I propose. Feel a bit glum about that – I enjoy teamwork but if I have to do it myself I guess I will and I totally understand about people being busy – life is like that here! There is no doubt they and the Team Leader support me in what I do so that is great. I love being a Coonara tutor!

20th July

Ack!! I still don’t know what I am going to do my research on. I am milling around with mentoring. That seems to be uppermost in my mind. We have one very new and one relatively new tutor starting in the Children’s Services Training Package and I feel there is a place for developing a solid tutor-mentoring project. However, it is looking like a big undertaking and I am doing this on my own so I will have to try to hone it down a little. Starting to feel a little stressed about not knowing my topic. Wonder if other people are feeling the way I do.

I don’t seem to have enough clear space (timewise and head space) to sit down and concentrate fully on this. My head is too busy with other things in my life like preparation, marking, teaching, supporting students and other tutors, supervising the Work for the Dole Project (which is getting out of hand) and trying to come to grips with the Learnscope Project and the other Flexible Delivery project as well as thinking about the Community Learning Project ideas for Debbie. Oh, and family comes in there somewhere!

30th July

Yesterday was the second meeting with the Learning Circles Project people. It was just our area participants so a much smaller group than the first time. I think maybe the room was a bit large or we were not organised properly as I felt a bit cut off from everybody except the person on my right and my left. Mind you, I could have got up and walked around! I had a brilliant conversation with Alan from Milpara who seems to see stuff in my head I don’t ! lol. His idea of the blog and wiki really appealed to me as I have been wanting to do this and it fits in with all my other e-learning co-ordination and flexible delivery stuff. I do like Merryn’s Action research template. It will help to point me in the right direction if I ever finally decide what I am going to do it on. I am still thinking about mentoring. I feel a bit better after filling out a bit of the template – it will be good for me I can see – keep me on track.

I enjoyed the presentations – Peter Waterhouse mentioned the swamp idea. Might use that in my blog site somewhere. The analogy really resonated with me. Feel only slightly less stressed at this point!