How to get triggered for triggers.....

18 + 19 March 2009

Sometimes you really want to structure your ideas,feelings or reflections on paper, but yesterday and today there were more reflections in my head and not yet ready for paperwork, and, to be honest: I was/am a little bit tired!
But,still I'll try to make a short reflection.

The last two days were very interesting for me. I was triggered to make triggers by the good lectures and information of the Xavier, Trude en Lisbet from the Mediacentre. And I really want to learn to make a good trigger,not only for Vircamp, but also to use in my own lectures.
And again I recognised a lot of the given information from my own art education.
The most important points:

A trigger is a multimediaproduction (text, graphics, photography, film music, animated items etc.
-we have many senses but one attention! Each element contributes to the total message - avoid 'noise'en remove unintended stories.
A trigger can be a methaphor - must 'trigger' to reflecting, thinking about something etc..
- what caches people's attention?
- movement
- focus
- big items
- colours

Anothter posssibility is the Digital Story - a collection of pictures or film with music, that tell the personel story of somebody (see www.storycenter.or - Myyshoes.
Than we started with brainstorming Gudrun, Ursula en Pieter vP.
I experienced the difficulty for the technicals to understand the content of the communitywork module. The first hour was listening to eacht other, asking questions, arguing etc. I experienced that I had strongly to keep in mind not to give the clue or the solution to something, but to let students think about that!
At the end of the afternoon we had the subject: starting point is a picture from the shrinking city serie from Gudrun. We want to trigger the students by showing them that bad areas can be changed in good areas, with the social worker as one of the keyrole playerss for projects and projectplanning.
Before and after the dinner in Egons restaurant, I worked on the first draft of mu screenlecture: 'Art as tool for social change'. I noticed that it was a long time ago that I was able to work so quiet for some hours! It still triggers me how to make a dynamic screenlecture without much read text by one 'head'.

Thursdaymorning: first the Trigger of the day (I really should have to see the film s slumdog millionaire!) and than back to the Triggerwork.
I received the mail from Eduardo with a summay of the film we made of the social sofa project. This is wonderful material for the screenlecture! I gave it to Xavier to experience of this is the good quality for taken in the lecture.

After a discussion about the form of the Trigger, with help of Trude, we (= our Triggergroup) came to our final decision: one building - with photoshop - sound and music - the change from the desolated area till the liveble and good area. After all it took a very long time to come to a good decision together. Finally: starting the work!
For the first time in my life I put some sounds in a scheme, cut, fade out etc.

In lunchtime we went to Vilvite - a centre for scientific recreation and learning and we were allowed to be homo ludens for about an hour and a half. A wonderful experience with presenting the wheatherforcast, making a digital painting, looking under the sealevel etc. etc.
After still 2 hours working is was obvious that we each group needed more time to finish the triggers, so tomorrow another hour to work on.

Than: fresh air! With Lssma, Bieke and Pieter up to Floyen! Lasma and I went to the top with the train and walked down - a nice walk with lovely views of a beautiful landscape in the sunset.
Bergen, Norway- I feel really at home here..

Now I am going to publish this blog and hopefully I will be lucky to publish some foto's and the 'painting' from Vilvide.....the blog still has some hidden secrets for me....

Screenlectures.....

Tuesday evening March 17 2009

This was the day of the screenlectures. A good topic because we (the WP2 workgroup) have to produce about 6 screenlectures. And we were talking already (in Mannheim for instance) about how we would like to have screenlectures in our Communitywork module.

We started the day with of course coffee en the presentation of the first 2 blogs. For me, it is always hard to make a start and to get familiar (again) with putting your thinking in English on the wwww. Hopefully it will be a difference after this week!

Xavier Bonete from the Mediacenter 'triggered' us with his presentation about what is a screeenlecture and what is a GOOD screenlecture.
He also showed an example: the use of the new i-pod. Very well done, Immediately decided to buy one!

Well, about the questions - what is a screenlecture?
Is a screenlecture part of the curriculum? a teaching method? or a place for reflection?

And what is a good screenlecture? we tried to answer that together the i-pod example in mind:
- it must have a clear message
- it is done in a convincing way
- it is done in an appealing way

And of course a lot of tips and trics:'don't forget the Pedagogy, make the faocus as clear as possible, use the visualisation possibilities to emphasis the impact, make short short pieces, to enable the student to find that piece he wanted to see again,
For the recording: record in a controlled environment, talking to the camera, white bakcground, grey texts, etc. etc.

We excercised with Moviemaker - a very comfortable editing program. I really liked to work with that: not difficult and good results! It was a pity that we have to stop with that.

Now we had to make a kind of a screenlecture ourselves - we were divided in groups of 2 and I was together with Anne Karin. We decided to do this lecure in the videoroom, the others decided to use the computer - the webcam or pictures in moviemaker.
We decide to make an introduction to a parative lecture. In a dialogue we would ask each other about the cities we live in (Bergen en Delft) and put some pictures to support the text.
So we went in it after a short preparation and after a stiff start, we ended rather relaxed.
One of the mediastaff people helped us with editing, but unfortunately the pictures we want to add were of bad quality and of course, the time was too limited to make a good product of it.
We discussed all the different productions and it was good to see the different possibilities.
The reactions: too long, a bit boaring, sometimes too serious, to much talking and to little pictures etc.
For me it was important to be (for the first time!) in front of a camera in a videostudio, to know what it is and what it look likes. May be I am not the right person for a screenlecture for this targetgroup....
I found it too longer either, and of course other material has to be put in. And may be another setting to talk in, and less but better subjects to talk about.
Students are asking these times for fast, new trics etc. so, we really have to work with new media.
The question of what is a good screenlecture, I cannot answer right now, but: I think that the mentioned critical points of our screenlecture show what is NOT a good lecture....
I have an idea now what it is to do a lecure in front of the camera. And I have an idea what you have to do and not to do to make it an attractive one!
I'll come back to that.
To be continued.......

Here I am again!

March 16, 2009

After 8 months, again a new part of my Blog which I started in May 2008 in Bergen when I followed the E-ped course.
Now I am again in Bergen and this time in the Vircamp Mediacourse, especially because of my participation in the curriculum development of the module Community work.

The first day we had a lot of presentations and I had to do one myself - about he curriculumdevelopment up till now. So I had to think over really well: what do the ict people need to know about the new module to be able to support us in developing the mediasstuff?
Afterwards I had the feeling to have given a clear presentation, but I am not quite sure if, for the ICT colleague, it was really clear and helpful.
I also realised that even for us, the 'content'people, the curriculum development and the weekschedule is still under construction!
We also started a Blog for this week and I realised that still it is not yet familiar to me to put my reflections on my blog. My technical qualities still have to be developed......

I really enjoyed the lecture of Lisbeth about Visual Communication. for me it was: the party of recognition! As my background is 'art' as well practical as theoretical, I am familiair with it, but is so good to hear and see it again and of a new perspective. So, she triggered me to do my work here with this 'language' in mind!

The day ended by a real nice event: cooking a dinner together at Neptuns lille Kokkeskole. It was really good to work together and enjoying a wonderful dinner

to be continued.....

Reflections before the final assignment...

I am realising now very severe: I have to do a lot of work to get finished the final assignment before my holiday, because on the final date I still am in Africa. That's the reason why I want to finish in three weeks and writing this, it seems to be very unrealistic to get everything ready on the quality I wanted to be.... But I'll give it a try...
A good preparation for all the tasks can help a little bit. Especially when the normal work is going on. So I blocked some working hours for the E-ped course in my agenda and some hours this morning are the first
Last week we had a chat with Grete Oline on the final assignment and I read all the instructions about it before. Writing two more papers seems the bottleneck as I thought, but Grete reassured me that I could use text from my Blog, the papers about Pro's and Con's of e-learning etc.
I experienced that a lot of the others did not yet published their curriculumplan, so everybody has time-problems..
I had to give a reflection on Elke's curriculumplan, which was not a severe problem, because she made a good plan. The only problem I had was: is her publised CP enough for this moment or not? Looking at my own plan, next to the general information, objectives, competences etc. I mentioned already tasks per week. So I mentioned Elke some practical questions and the most important one was that the planned time for her module seems too long for me (too long in my considerations to get students 'triggerd'and concentrated)

About my finishing process:
I read some articles (but also blogs and papers of the others) during the weekend for all tasks, so I hope I am prepared. What I experienced again is the differences between the products of the people from Universities and the ones form the Universities for Professional Education. The first ones are very much academic, more scientific, while the UfPE are more practical. I had to learn to be more practical, but now I think that I reached the point to be more academic again. (justify by literature etc.) without loosing the practical considerations.
Anne Karin reflected already on my curriculum plan and I was impressed about it. She was very clear and to the point about some parts and her reflections were most of the time the same ones I was not yet sure about. As I answered her: it's just like painting.. after having done some work, you have to step back and have a look and you see what's not yet ok, and after some of these moments, when it doesn't yet feels good you have to put it in a corner and have a look after some days and then you see what's the failure.... I think it's the same by creating this kind of plans - your should have time to rethink, reconsider and re-creation. The organic way of creation is the best, in my case definitively.

Today I will start with my Reflections on my own learning process in this course and what it means to my future teaching philosophy. My plan is to end is at least next Monday. Also I start to look again at my CP and make already some improvements. My biggest task will be to get the right literature and to make one lecture (a screen lecture will not be possible I am afraid...)I read some articles during the weekend for all tasks, so I hope I am prepared.
I started already to define my didactical considerations, so in the end I hope this will not be the biggest problem.
My scheme:
29 June - 7 July Reflections on learning process etc. - first improvements on CP - consider-ations of literature
8 July - 18 July Finishing CP, lecture and trigger
18 July - 20 July Didactical considerations in my e-course
And then I still have some days left for 'in case of'......
I hope I can manage it like this and that no calamities will occur that will destroy this plan.

Two more things:
What I experienced about the language: I get more familiair writing in English, but I know that it is grammaticaly not quite right and I still need a dictionnary to find the right (I hope..) words or expressions. So having an English course on Cambridgelevel is one of my goals for next year and I am trying to organise this for the whole location of INHolland The Hague as I experienced this as one of the mobstacles (mobility obstacles, but you also could say internationalisation obstacles) for internationalisation...
The other thing is about using the chat - I think it is unpossible to do this with more than 3 or 4 people especially when the participants are not quite familair the the language of the chat. The 3 or 4 times I was in a chat now, I had the problem having the feeling to be too late with my reaction.
What happened then was that my reaction on a sentence did not look like that and that could could couse some misunderstanding especially when somebody else thought you mentioned something to him or her and it was not the case! And what I experiences as that I was not the only one with that problem. So I have to get more used to that and may be it is necessary to make some appointments before chatting - mention in your answer or question the initials of the person who you're questioning or answering etc.
To be continued!!

about curriculumplans and triggers!

The last blog I wrote was on May 17th. Along time ago, but it takes so much time to communicate, read and develop a structure for a curriculumplan that I decided to spent as much time I had on that than on writing a blog.
But today it is time to look back at about 3 weeks working and managing with time etc. I really think Vivienne, Antonia and myself are a good team. I takes a lot of time to communicate, but unless that we are very busy, we take some time for socializing, but of course too short.
We worked together in Google doc, because we decided to make one course, with three modules - together we made the general part and each of us of course developed their own module. Is is a curious idea to experience, that when you are at work in that document, you see that the others also are writing and that in so different parts of the world!
In chatsessies we had to make decisions about defferent parts of our plan and we experiences what also student will expierence: different knowledge of English and different ideas about the content, for instance what is a competence and how to describe in the aims, outcomes etc. But i was wondering about the fact that it is very easy for us to come to an ageement, in Dutch we would say: the poldermodel is working very well! We are open for the ideas of the others, but are able to come to agreements without much problems.
So our cooperation is interesting and we learn a lot of each other. I think we all three are hard workers and we managed in time, although it cost sometimes late evening or night hours.
I always try to keep in mind the overview and always try to summarize what the appointments are and what to do next etc, so keeping an eye on the structure. All three of us have their own special contribution to the whole and I experience that we are a very good team that cooperates and colloborates well totgether! And because of that we are very lucky..

For now, I am curious about the reflection of our curriculumplan an about the triggers and than starting the last part of this course.....

The first week after....

After a nice weekend and an extra day off (Whistun holiday)back to INHOLLAND Den Haag. It was strange to go back in the real world - it felt like missing something, the international colleagues and working together at only one thing - he E-ped.course!
Now I had to share attention with twenty things and hardly any time to share my experiences with collegues.
But every day I had in mind to do something for the course - reading and working on the article, thinking of how to arrage my own course, thinking of he pedagogical and didactical demands.... But is hard and becomes harder to take time for this...

The problem with the shared document we use for the article about e-learning is, that the 3 of us put a lot of text in it, but how to arange a structured article of this? I really think we have to make appointments about this.
Yesterday (Friday) we planned our chatmeeting about the e-paper, but unfortunately, Vivienne was not online (she had problems with installing MSN as she mailed later on)
but Toni and I made some appointments,especially about the structure, that we mailed to her. I hope we will manage to structure the article in a effective way! It is my first experience (no, that's not quite true, but this is different) with a shared document, so I wonder how peole manage with this!
With the MSN chat I experienced it hard to communicate synchronous. When you write your answer too long, you give an answer to something which is already overruled by another question! It is effective to have short answers and questions and when you see that the other is writing, the best is to wait til ou see the written senses and then answer.So that is for me something to work on.
Today, Saturday, I worked about 3 hours on the structure of the article in the quietness of my home with nobody there! I feel that I ned this to work effectively and at the University I can hardly find that because we are with about 12 people in a small room.... So this work for the E-ped course, I better can do at home.

The only thing I have still to do is to make my learning objectives and a time schedule.. but it seems that this has for me no priority, I know what I have to do, I have the schedule in my head.... But I have to do it, just as I would say to students that they have to do it!! This will be a goal for the coming days.
But first sme preparation for my visit to Hochschule Darmstadt, Germany that will start tomorrow!

The last day of the E pedagogy course......(and the day before....

Yesterday we ended the day by a lovely walk to the Social Work building of HiB to have dinner there together prepared byAnne Karin and Grete Oline. They did a great job! I think it amazable to see how much attention they gave to us this week! And even prepare dinner for us!
(I forgot the name of the ' porridge' that Anne Karin made, a speciality from Norway but I liked it') It was very nice to talk, eat and drink together - a very nice ' last supper'.
(It was a pity that we were not complete: Jochen Peter had already to go home)
So there was not much time left yesterday afternoon for reflection, but we had a very good day in my opinion. After some instructions we went on with our curriculumplans. We made the decision that Vivienne, Antonia and I will work together and we will try to make one big course of 10 EC and everyone takes one part to develop. I am glad we did, because our themes are related together and it is a good way of cooperation.
We had a good brainstorm of an hour and the result of listening to each other and try ta make the best construction for each in the whole structure is a good one! Working together gives a lot more results than doing it on your own! We made appointments about the next work we have to do - the E-learning paper and the curriculum.
So a very good day to end with!


Today we started later and with still less people: Klas Goran and Vivienne had to leave earlier in the morning, so we were left with 6 of us.
We evaluated about yesterday and the course. Everybody has a good feeling about it especially when the course get more practice. The weekend before was a very good way to get to learn each other and get more familiair. But the work we have still to do is very much and everybody looks at it like how to climbe a mountain
Anne Karin was very open in her reflection: she acknowledged that it was hard to get the group involved the first days but by changing the program this ' problem' was solved. She was impressed by our reflections and the work we did on the last day with the start of creating our curriculum.
I think I learned a lot of this week, about ict skills, about reflections, about contents of Social Work and I met a lot of wonderful and interesting people. So this week will always stay with a * in my memory. I hope we can work together in the future!
I am looking forward to work with Vivienne and Antonia to our Curriculum and to chat and mail with the others!
Thanks very much everybody! And especially of course Anne Karin, Grete etc.....