Reflection - 'Twitter for the Teaching Professional' session

The first Technology Enhanced Learning Series session had to be moved to D438. The room is laid out with PCs, but the room is not designed for teaching as it is normally used as open access for students. The session had six staff members attending which is one more than I will be able to accommodate in the normal training room.

The session plan had to be changed as it was not possible to have a digital projector and screen. I enrolled all the staff onto the new Community of Practice site on Moodle to allow the staff to view the presentation I was going to project onto the wall.

Not so good...
The session was a lot slower than I had hoped as Twitter did not make the new users available for others to follow during the session (took too long). This meant that I had to re-assess how I was going to teach it. I decided to use my own Twitter account to show the type of professional people I followed and how to find others. One staff member quickly found my link to sceenr and downloaded it... worked well.

Good...
The Technology Enhanced Learning Series is now launched.
Twitter is understood by more staff especially how easy it is to protect yourself and if necessary delete the account.
The Community of Practice Moodle site is also launched with staff members registered.

Reflection...
The main positive outcomes of the session were to allow the staff to see the how easy it was to setup a Twitter account (and also to delete it if necessary). I was able to highlight how I use it with my professional peers. The Community of Practice site is now live and more staff are aware of both the Child Protection Policy and the Safe Guarding Children policy. I will now encourage the attendees to share their Twitter names and get them linked to each other.

The most IMPORTANT lesson I personally learnt was to set-up a set of accounts for Twitter and Facebook etc for staff to use in these sessions. They may then setup their own personal accounts at the end or after the session.

Hic-up

Well just as I was catching up I got caught with a virus. Back to stage one and re-implementing my system of jobs first thing in the morning. Need to check on LTU workshop for Wednesday to ensure I have computers.

Catching up.

I managed to produce the overarching framework for the Advance PDA role at the weekend. I'll wait for reply and the (I guess) necessary changes. Next on my list is my Module A plan for PG CHEP. Try and start that tonight.

So far so good

Yesterday was very enjoyable. I am just hoping it is not my own reaction to change that is producing this improvement to the day. I do feel better when I go home and I did not feel so pressured about work during the evening as I have everything slotted into its own date and time to be completed.

This change of focus has helped me realise that I will not be able to meet two deadlines... CHEP assignment a and Adv PDA framework. However, I have the workload sloted into my calender (includes weekends) and therefore I have a good idea when they will be done. I have been able to advise LSIS and Uni of Essex of the situation and that this is temporary while I cope with my recent increase in workload (temporary) to help another department.
I have just removed everything that is not current from my noticeboards and my desk and area looks a lot more professional.

Seeing the improvements

Walking in and seeing no piles of paper on my desk was a great relief. Especially as I know I have every item on my list in my calender. Now to work!

First steps in moving to-do list t a do list.

I am moving all the little to-to jobs to a slots every morning BEFORE checking the emails. Next I am identifying slots of time to carry out the larger tasks... these may be a few hours over a few days or weeks as necessary. All this will take a few days to organise.

Lets see how I get on :-)

Unpicking my to-do list

I am amazed how my to do list never gets smaller and that it is at the back of my mind niggling away. So I am now going to allocate time in my diary for each item on my list. Therefore I hope that I now know that it will be done and when another request comes in I don't add it to my list I find time in my diary which may be a number of days away. Emergencies will always happen so I will have to deal with them as normal which may mean I might have to shuffle a few tasks around, but again they are allocated a time for me to complete.

Let see how I get on :-).