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.

Stupid, stupid, stupid

The article read:

Three Adelaide schoolgirls are unlikely to face charges after uploading a risque video to YouTube, police say.

SA police confirmed on Wednesday that the incident had been referred to them by the education department and related to the inappropriate video posted by the students from the Mitcham Girls High School.

The Adelaide Now website said it featured the three girls in school uniform talking about offering sexual encounters for money. "It appears the girls involved in this incident were participating in a stunt and unaware of the dangers and repercussions their action would have."

 http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/national/13346573/girls-upload-risque-video-to-youtube/  

Stupid, stupid, stupid... they have more than likely been using the internet and social media sites for some time, have been told on numerous occasions about inappropriate online behaviour, seen it, heard it and more than likely, viewed it. Yet the consequences of uploading the most inappropriate and suggestive video as they did was plain stupid.
They were not intoxicated, edged on by other school students but just thinking this was a prank, a joke that has subsequently backfired, and not the schoolgirls have been suspended, what were they thinking. Naive, perhaps with risk attached.


The article also stated:

Police said the incident was a reminder to both children and parents about the importance of online safety and that social networks were public forums where inappropriate actions could leave a digital legacy that could be very difficult to erase.

Why is the message not clear enough for young people to realise the consequences of their actions. The manner in which they and or anyone interacts with social media is not new, yet!

The message is obviously still not clear and not getting through. Is it about time that the education council take note and teach appropriate online behaviour or is this the parents role.

Schools are there to teach a set curriculum that will enable students to move into other higher educational areas of study and/or enough to get an apprenticeship or job.

Parents role is teaching their children about societal issues and how they should be embedding enough social responsibility, care, respect and courteousness  that their dear cherubs can belong and contribute to a well-balanced society.

My question then is why is this still aloud to happen, or is it even YouTube's fault for not filtering out such inappropriate trash by young people...I am concerned for the behaviour of the young in today's society.

Shopping online, cheaper, quicker and more choice

"Shares in retailer David Jones have slumped by 11 per cent after the company warned of a full year profit drop of up to 40 per cent. David Jones shares were down 30 cents, or 11 per cent, at $2.43 on Wednesday.

DJ's  - The retailer will expand its chain and also improve its online store. And  Kathmandu shares were down 16.1 per cent, or 24 cents, at $1.25."

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/business/a/-/national/13224053/retailers-shares-plunge-on-lower-profits/

Retailers everywhere are seriously starting to feel the pinch of online shopping for those inclined to wait just a bit longer to receive their goods in the post from an online store that can shave, in some instances, up to 65% off the same goods purchased in a local Australian retail outlet.

And why not.

Why would anyone in their right mind spent up to 65% more for goods in the name of supporting who, the retailer, local jobs or goods manufacturers.

 

Even magazines are feeling the pinch with sales of the likes of FHM dropping from just over 26,000  to 20,000 in a matter of months. It was quoted as saying "FHM is a picture magazine and the type of pictures here can be accessed for free on the internet, so why pay for something that is free. And instead of pictures in a magazine of 80 pages, try 80 million images for nothing. " Very hard to convince advertisers to stick around when the readers are not buying.

So, will there be a time in the future when retail outlets cease to exist; is it a distinct possibility that the legacy of ladies going out shopping together will be a thing of the past, what will they do...have online shopping parties at a friends house!

And it's not just in Australia this is effecting.

The headline reads "Small shops disappearing in Poland: Around 50,000 small retail units have closed down in the last two years, according to a new report."

http://www.thenews.pl/1/12/Artykul/93046,Small-shops-disappearing-in-Poland

Mary Portas: high streets destined to 'disappear forever'

Britain's high streets have reached a "crisis point" and will "disappear forever" as shopping destinations unless they are urgently regenerated, Mary Portas has warned.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/8951411/Mary-Portas-high-streets-destined-to-disappear-forever.html

And as for books, in June 2011, The Minister for Small Business (Australia) Mr Nick Sherry enraged book retailers by forecasting the imminent demise of bookstores stating they will all be closed in five years.

What do you think will happen to the likes of bookstores and general retailers? 

The dumb things people say...

I sometimes wonder and marvel at the ability if technology to move  message so quickly into cyberspace that before you know it, the quick quip or lose statement made has gone into the big wide world of viral!

Take for instance, someone I know made a dumb-arse statement, on Facebook about his mate having more girlfriends that Kony has children.

Friends know he's a twit, but does he realise that this type of statement can bring down the reputation of many a young person, especially has he starts to grow in his career and who knows when this is still around to haunt him in his future life. A drunken update from phone to Facebook at 2:00am is still no excuse.

What are some of the rules then governing the use of updating your world in cyberspace:

1. Don't put anything online that your mother, grandmother or recruitment agency would not approve of (maybe there should be an app that sits on said parental phones for approval and confirmation first)

2. Another app perhaps that 'de-links' any person between the ages of 18-28 and after midnight uploading any messages, harmful statements of the such like into their Facebook and Twitter accounts. This is switched on with a password by your friend and expires at 6:00am the next morning. 

Then if you wish to update post-party pictures then do so with a reasonable clear head.

3. Make sure auto-correct is switched off as soon as you step out the front door on route to the club/party. This has spawned a whole generation of new dumb-arse sites that you don't want to be seen on either.

4. If you think your privacy policy is good, safe and private, think again, ITS NOT. Always have the mindset that somewhere someone can see, hear and find you, especially future recruitment agencies.

and last but not least;

5. Common sense is a trait that perhaps builds with mother time and I am talking here about becoming a mature and respectable citizen of the community. Find a good mentor, and if you trust them, then listen to them and understand why they say the things that you should do and shouldn't be doing, they call this using common sense.

Take care out there...I'm watching you!