Task 3d: Critical Questions and Issues that Emerge

Do some very specific ideas emerge about your networking and sources?
I think that networking can be beneficial to everyone in all professions.  I have found that my network is currently quite small and I am finding new ways to get to know people and find more information about the industry.  I have recently joined Linkedin as I have heard that it is useful in getting work.  At the moment I am still not used to it and haven't got many "friends" on there but I hope to be on there more often and hopefully find it useful.  I am also starting to get used to google plus.  I have had it a while after a friend asked me join but I have hardly used it.  It is a great way to keep in contact with people and I have noticed that some people have friends who I know.  This comes to the point where some of my networks overlap where people are friends with people who aren't in the industry. I find this interesting as it gives me a wider scope of different people and sources which makes information easier to find.

Are your ideas, position or concerns shared by others within and/or beyond your professional area of work?
I have realised that although I know a few people, the people who I am closest to are not in the industry.  I prefer to keep my personal and professional life separate.  I am also quite a private personal so I don't normally switch between the two.  For example I have a real name and a professional name, although people may think this can get quite confusing for me I have never had a problem.  This is because when I'm working I introduce myself as my professional name and when I am at home it is my real name. 

Does sharing ideas and communicating with others shift your thinking, planning or practice?
I do think that sharing ideas and interacting with others changes your thinking as every individual has different views.  I believe that it can change your view as you hear the other part of the story.  I do think that I learn from everyone I meet as everyone has a different background and past which makes us all unique.  From a professional view communication can help others with songs or auditions but I have noticed that some people aren't as willing to pass on information as others.  

Does critical reflection help you decide what really matters and the actions to take?
From producing a journal I have noticed what is useful and beneficial to me and what isn't.  I always thought that I am organised and a good time keeper but from doing this course, I may not be as good as I thought I was. I didn't take into consideration changes of circumstance for example getting a job over the christmas period.  I had planned what I needed to do and because I have got offered a job I had to juggle my commitments around and found that I had less time than I thought to complete my first module.

To what extent do concepts and theories assist you in thinking about your professional networking in different ways? And do these different ways of thinking have some purpose for you?
I have found that the more information you know and can find out the more beneficial it will be for the individual.  You can never know too much so learning and reading about as many concepts and theories have to be a good sign.  From reading about theories you can then find out more ways to interact with people and therefore find out more information.  I knew from the beginning that my professional network is quite small therefore I have had to read theories to get them larger.

Are you left thinking differently prior to this part of the module? and if so how?
I do believe that I have been thinking differently as I have never really thought about reflection and networking until now.  I didn't realise how useful it can be and how essential it is in the industry.  From learning about concepts and theories I do think that there is more information out there and I now feel proactive to find out more.

Task 3c: Sources of Information

There are so many ways to find out information nowadays.  Theres the traditional way of meeting with people and talking face to face and a more obvious choice of searching on the internet.  

As the internet is becoming more accessible to everyone is has become the easiest way to find out information however I do not trust its reliability. For auditions I use "the stage" a online site that gives listings of mainly open auditions and information about them.  I do think this is a trusted site as I know many performers use it and it has never let me down. For researching I have used wikipedia, as it is normally the first link that comes out on google but is it reliable? I do believe that some of the information is truth but I also look elsewhere just to check.  I think the reason for this is that members of the public can update the website which makes it unreliable.

Google is a search engine that I use regularly and is a good way to view different links on the same page.  It is also very quick and lists the sites in most popular at the top which is very useful.  I do think that I take google for granted as it is so fast at retrieving information.

I do think that newspapers are the best way of finding information on world topics but although it is not much, you do need to pay which makes people use the internet more.  Using the internet is also more convenient as people don't even have to leave their house to get information.

The layout on the internet is so important to me as it makes it easier to read and understand information.  If the site I am viewing is just a block of writing I will normally close the page and use another as it looks too long and boring to read.  I have tried my best to make my blogs as reader as possible so that I can look back on my work and be able to understand relate to it quickly.  I have therefore put different size fonts and used bold and italic in places so that I know where the key information is.

I do rely on the internet far too much and I am now looking into other sources such as books and newspapers.  I did buy a newspaper recently and I found that the information is similar to the internet but written in a different way.  It also has a lot of relevant content which I found interesting as it all related.  In the future I will look into reading more books and journals as it may give different information that I may find useful.

Task 3b: Theories Relating to Networking

What is a professional network?

-a work related community held together by either close working affiliation or more distant but common work interests or needs.

Cooperation

Cooperation is closely linked with Game theory where one player succeeds with the help of another.  Robert Axelrod is a researcher and found the benefits of cooperating fully with others until you reach a point of maximum benefit and then to 'defect.'

Prisoner's Dilemma (picture below) is a game developed by Axelrod to discover patterns of behaviour. Axelrod described this method as"cooperate until maximum benefit produced then deflect"

Prisoner's Dilemma 

The following characteristics of an evolutionary game are:

• Be nice - cooperate, never be the first to defect
• Be provocable - returen defection fro defection, cooperation for cooperation
• Don't be envious - be fair with your partner
• Don't be too clever - or, don't be to tricky.

I do think this is important as both parties need to be mutuel in order for cooperation to be beneficial.

Affiliation

Affiliation is a social process that provides us with a network of support that will help us when we are in need.  (Crisp & Turner, 2007)

'adolescents spent about 75 per cent of their waking time with other people' (Larson, Csikszentmihalyi and Graef -1982)

I believe this was true with me as I was growing up.  I belonged to a lot clubs outside of school and I also went to school half an hour away from where I live so I knew a lot of people.  This meant that I was always talking and spending a lot of time with people my own age.  I do think it was beneficial to spend time with different people as I gained experience by learning about other people..

Socially is essential in networking. Growing up I seem to have lost connect with people and my network has got smaller but I feel that the friends I am close to will always support me and help me whenever I need it. I do need to improve my professional network as I am not close with many friends in the industry.  I am a bit unsure how to do this as I hardly go to auditions anymore (due to financial needs) and even if I did go to an audition, if you don't know anyone I've found that you don't talk to anyone or to talk to someone and they clearly don't want to talk to you.

Theory of Connectivity 

Social Constructionism 
Through social interaction people can gain experiences and find meanings of the world.  By finding these meanings we can find our preferred ways of engaging networks.

As a fairly recent graduate, social networking is essential to finding out about auditions and jobs.  I hope that in the future, the more work I get the more people I get to know that I get a wider network of people.

From working at a school I have got to know people who are in the field that I may see myself doing in the future.  From talking to various teachers and teaching assistant I have learnt a lot about how much time and effort the school has to put in, in order for it to run smoothly.  I am still uncertain if this is what I want to spend my life doing as I love the theatre far too much to give it up.

Connectivism 

Connectivism is a theory about learning influenced by ideas about the organisation of learning and information with special reference to the spread of the internet. (Reader 3)
Connectivisim shows how we learn from other networks and also suggests the original way of learning (by passing on information to each other)  It can be used as a professional network where individuals interact and learn. 

Blogging is a great way to stay connected especially on this BAPP course as it allows people to stay in contact and give each others opinions.  The learning process starts as an individual and then grows from meeting people in different places.

Here are some significant trends in learning:

• Many learners will move into a variety of different, possibly unrelated fields over the course of their lifetime.
• Informal learning is a significant aspect of our learning experience. Formal education no longer comprises the majority of our learning. Learning now occurs in a variety of ways – through communities of practice, personal networks, and through completion of work-related tasks.
• Learning is a continual process, lasting for a lifetime. Learning and work related activities are no longer separate. In many situations, they are the same.
• Technology is altering (rewiring) our brains. The tools we use define and shape our thinking.
• The organization and the individual are both learning organisms. Increased attention to knowledge management highlights the need for a theory that attempts to explain the link between individual and organizational learning.
• Many of the processes previously handled by learning theories (especially in cognitive information processing) can now be off-loaded to, or supported by, technology.
• Know-how and know-what is being supplemented with know-where (the understanding of where to find knowledge needed).

Principles of connectivism:

• Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.
• Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources.
• Learning may reside in non-human appliances.
• Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known
• Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning.
• Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill. 
• Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities. 
• Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision.

Communities of Practice

"A community of practice is a set of relations among persons, activity, and world, over time and in relation with other tangential and overlapping communities of practice.  A community of practice is an intrinsic condition for the existence of knowledge, not least because it provides the interpretive support necessary for making sense of its heritage". (Lave, J and Wegner, E. 1991).

Wenger identified a community of practice as existing on three dimensions:

• What it is about – its joint enterprise as understood and continually renegotiated by its members;
  
• How it functions - mutual engagement that bind members together into a social entity;
  
• What capability it has produced – the shared repertoire of communal resources. 
  

This is based on shared opinions and focuses more on interaction. It is a social practice and is normally connected with specific social groups i.e. people with similar interests.


References:

Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age - George Siemens 2004-12-12


Preface - Robert Axelrod

Affiliation and attraction - Richard J. Crisp, Rhiannon N. Turner

Constructionism: the making of meaning - Michael Crotty

Legitimate peripheral participation in communities in practice - Jean Lave, Etienne Wenger