A challenge for you

We all walk around as if we 'think' we are doing the right thing of ourselves and others around us, but when have you truly stopped and asked someone if what you are doing is right!

I recently asked for some professional feedback from some of my peers.
Trusted to ask as they would provide me with honest, professional feedback with the knowledge that they wouldn't hurt my feelings by my request that i will keep the emotion out of the conversation. In terms of HR and performance management, this is sometimes called a 360 degree reflection tool.



So here is my challenge to you...ask someone you trust to provide 'honest' feedback about your leadership skills, the way you treat people and the manner in which you role model yourself to others

Responsible and accountable

Yesterday I was babysitting my two grandsons Hamish and William and was wondering of their future possibilities and the hidden potential in both of them.
This led me to thinking about the responsibilities of being a good parent in bringing up children, being accountable for my actions and being a responsible person in today's society.
Its not easy.

However, one of many things my parents taught me was to be responsible for my own actions, abide by societies rules and regulations and help others.
How did my parents know if they were doing a good job or not, they didn't. They just had the experiences of their own personal lives to call upon to know what to do. If they were hit as children, then this would have been 'their normal'.
Luckily for me this wasn't the case.

Last night on the news I watched a small community in the Eastern States implode as the parents of a bunch of kids were allowed to walk around with knives...to 'protect themselves'. The kids were aged between 10 to 14.
When they become parents I wondered what they will teach their children. I am assuming it would be based on their own personal experiences, and so the cycle continues.

The question then is how this cycle can be broken? I don't have the answer.

I think this can be changed partially through what I know as the African saying that 'our kids are brought up by the village'. This relates to when the menfolk left home for hunting expeditions, the women and mothers were left to work in the village and care for everything that happened there.
Foraging for food, collecting water and many other chores required the kids being left to others to bring up the children, but with the trust and knowledge that everyone worked to a common cause.

With this in mind, I'd like to think that teachers, school carers, child-minders, creche's and the such like are part of that village and play a major part of bringing up those children.
They become the so-called surrogate parents who have a highly-underestimated role in showing a better way of bringing up children, much the same way as all our current and future leaders do in today's society. That's a lot of responsibility.

However, what a great opportunity of beginning the change in a young persons life and potentially 'breaking' an ongoing cycle that can only see peoples lives shattered through violence with love and care.
People need to stand up and challenge the normal. Be leaders. Take on responsibility and in doing so, you might never see the benefits of the seed you plant, but in doing so, if every person does their bit, who knows the changes in society each one of us could accomplish as a whole.
I am role modelling every day in what I believe about changing someones life somewhere, somehow...are you!

Along my journey

Last night I volunteered my time and service to be the MC (Master of Ceremonies) for the PRIA (Public Relations Institute of Australia) Excellence Awards.

The evening saw a number of people, mostly young  come away with a Commended, Highly Commended or Winners trophy for some amazing PR campaigns.

During the evening I met many of my own - past students who were now working in industry and looking on in awe. One young lady 'told' me that she will win next year and that nothing else will be acceptable.

She is the Communications Coordinator for the Department of Education and her name is Janine Hammersley...watch this space.

The Government Program she is currently working on is to celebrate education in providing substantial awareness about educating indigenous people who have little to no current opportunity of getting an education in remote areas. The campaign is centred on providing opportunities for new and existing teachers to participate in the program, but they 'must' be damn good communicators with a passion, flair and understanding and the consequences of the challenge that lay ahead.

New teachers must sign up for a two-year period to participate in the program for which in return they might have their degree or masters degree paid for in full.

The outcome of this is far reaching and you can only begin to imagine the possibilities of the future of educated young people.

I am proud to know her and what a pleasure if I am the MC next year to present the winners trophy to own of my own students which I have helped on her journey.

A rare privilege

I had the rare privilege to be a part of something very special with a group of very special people with the Aboriginal Leadership Program from the Department of Corrective Services in Western Australia.

I met some amazing leaders.

I am personally in awe of where people have come from and where they are going.

I want to be a part of their journey. Who knows where it may take them, but the change is now inevitable, there is no turning back. Others will recognise the change in them. This group will stand tall and proud of who they are walking quietly and showing others the way.

This group will lead people to great things. As yet I don't know what great things they will pass on. It could be something so small as to sow the seed of possibility with just a caring smile; a hand of love on a child's shoulder or showing someone that there is a better life for those that they come into contact with.

They may never even see the positive trail they leave in their wake, but I do know one thing.

They are prepared to share and show a better way for all.

The 'e' of e-learning

I had recently read that the 'e' of e-learning is to be dropped shortly as when the phrase was first coined, it differentiated learning in a classroom to online learning.

I have now been delivering online courses for quite a few years now and find that the appeal to me is the challenge of engaging my students in their learning, building a collaborative online community and having successful outcomes.

The latter important for the continuity of the course, a successful outcome for the student in completing their course with Competence and building the ability of students to encompass 21st Century literacy into their profile.

What do I mean by 21st Century literacy, the ability to use technology and the Internet.

Tony Gurr believes the following is true of 21st Century learners: http://tinyurl.com/7k4q7fn

Time and time again, we hear exactly the same answers. It doesn’t matter what country we’re in. It doesn’t matter who the stakeholders are. Consistently, these are the answers we hear most:

• Problem solving: Students need the ability to solve complex problems in real time.

• Creativity: Students need to be able to think and creatively in both digital and non-digital environments to develop unique and useful solutions.

• Analytic thinking: Students need the ability to think analytically, which includes facility with comparing, contrasting, evaluating, synthesizing, and applying without instruction or supervision and being able to use the higher end of Bloom’s taxonomy.

• Collaboration: Students must possess the ability to collaborate seamlessly in both physical and virtual spaces, with real and virtual partners globally.

• Communication: Students must be able to communicate, not just with text or speech, but in multiple multimedia formats. They must be able to communicate visually, through video and imagery, in the absence of text, as actively as they do with text and speech.

• Ethics, Action, Accountability: This cluster includes responses such as adaptability, fiscal responsibility, personal accountability, environmental awareness, empathy, tolerance, and many more. Though the language may vary a little, every group of stakeholders (parents through national-level officials) give us more or less the same answers.

Having seen the same topics of discussion on several websites this reinforces my thinking that lecturers and teachers alike need to ensure that they use technology only as a tool for 21st Century use and that it takes nothing away from the pedagogy of learning.

Proud of my sons

On Sunday 22 March 1990, my son Kelton was born. In a few days time it will be his 22nd birthday.

I was there at his birth. I welcomed him into a new world from a warm and comfortable place, that was his world for the past nine months.

I still remember when he was born he was a disconcerting blue colour, then he shivered, cried, screamed and was then calm.

I even cut his umbilical cord, a small squirt of blood came out which the nurse as quickly clamped with what looked like a plastic paperclip.

The nurse took him a few meters away and placed him on a towel that was sat on a small set of scales. It read 3.24kgs.I smiled with pride. But it was more than pride, it was instant love. 

The love only a man could know and appreciate what it is like to be a father. 

Protective, concerned, anxious for my son's welfare, this fragile bundle of absolute joy was now to be taken care of by two people who had never met him before and yet trusted, without question, everything they would do for him.

They would teach him how to be responsible, be fit and healthy, be honest, grow with integrity, become the leader we wanted of him, be respectful, to be able to fit into society and finally be the man every father wishes of their sons, just a good all round guy that we could be proud of.

He has and is.

As happens in every mans life, it gets to a point when its time to 'fly the roost'. Last week my son left home and moved into his own place with some friends. He was both excited and somewhat sad. When I asked why he said that he really had no reason to move other than he was growing up and wanted to be more independent. He also said "quite a few of my friends asked why I am moving out and did you have a spat with your parents or something? no I said nothing like that at all."

Again, when I asked why he stated that most, if not all had some issue of point of crisis with their parents and 'had' to move out. Again, I felt proud we did something right and will continue to do so.

For most of my or rather his life, I have always checked into both my sons rooms just to make sure they are OK. The eldest son Kyle, left home a few years ago, is now married with two amazing sons of his own (Hamish and William). On Monday morning I still checked to see if Kelton was OK, or rather to get him up for work, but his room was empty, he had naturally taken everything he owned and moved into his new world now and so... I felt a small sense of loss, but a bigger sense of pride.

I am proud.

Social media in training

I am having to prepare for a future professional development day workshop on aspects and use of social media and making sure I keep the topic in context with training students at Central. Where to start...

This hot topic and ongoing argument has raised major concerns amongst lecturers of what we should be teaching our students about embedding social media and general communication and wondering if it actually has a place in industry.

I have noted on numerous occasions that those who embrace and challenge their students are generally educated in the art of using social media for both personal and professional use. Those who argue its integrity and negativity, rely solely on the general populace stance that 'all' social media does not have a place in training students to be work-ready when embarking on their future career pathways.

Key to my workshop will be a number of facets that include social learning, and advocated in http://www.fastcompany.com/1546824/where-social-learning-thrives by Marcia Conner states "Social learning is not just the technology of social media, although it makes use of it."

Another area of concern is the confidentiality of students work, personal details etc in that I state categorically that every person should have two online identities - personal and professional and neither one should be aligned with the other.

The use of social media in the class is paramount for the potential it holds in communicating with one's students in the environment they visit most. Consider the following from http://wearesocial.com.au/blog/2012/04/03/social-tuesday-tuneup-33/:

1. Australian Social Media stats – March 2012
Facebook grew by nearly 200,000 Australian users in March, though the surprising figure is the Myspace traffic, with nearly half a million visitors.

1. Facebook – 10,889,960 Australian users/accounts (up 186,800) – 13 million UAVs according to Google Adplanner. The difference between the user numbers and unique visitors is people probably logging in from multiple locations – home, school, work etc.
2. YouTube – 10,000,000 UAVs (down 1,000,000)
3. Blogspot – 4,000,000 (up 500,000)
4. LinkedIn – 2,100,000 (down 100,000)
5. Twitter – 1,600,000 (down 200,000)
6. WordPress.com – 1,600,000 (steady)
7. Google Plus – 1,289,940 (up approx 90,000 – Estimated calculation below)
8. Tumblr – 1,100,000 (steady)
9. Flickr – 840,000 (down 80,000)
10. MySpace – 470,000 (down 50,000)

and...4. L’Oreal has a team of 400 staff working in social media

I believe embracing social media and its use in the class and training students is a required skill-set.

I will ensure that my presentation will be engaging, varied, statistically eye-opening, fun and above all practical.