Here is this month’s (not a week which is usually the case) snap stories of personal learning for January 2018.
Rather than do it weekly, this month, I decided to place them all into one post only and in future, I’m thinking to “storify” these (well, the Storify app is not available anymore but I have been testing an alternative called Wakelet).
One way to capture all these are to embed them into Wakelet and then use the embed code to put into a WordPress post. It may save me some time but it would also mean that I can add additional links. (Not that I can’t in WordPress). However, the ideal would be to always use the service that you PAY for on the platform that YOU own (like this one) as opposed to any free service because tools invariably disappear on you (as what happened with Storify) and then there’s a mad scramble to get your work transferred into a platform….
On second thoughts, maybe I’ll just stick to what I’m doing here.
Wednesday 3 January 2018
Back from a nice break from Canberra (Snap Stories are on YouTube channel but not shared here because they’re not anything to do with personal learning – derr!) and I had a meeting with a client to talk about how they can use social media in their business. I get asked a lot by people outside of Learning and Development (small business owners) about how to use social media that is mainly marketing related. Although not my area of expertise, the people I speak to, over time really see that social networks are less about marketing (‘pushing’ their products and services) and more about building and engaging in community. Sometimes this scares them because of the fear they have in the time they have to commit with engaging but they need it has to be done. Luckily, the people who call on me have now started to reframe their thinking around this aspect and have seen the benefits because of the connections and relationships they are finding and making.
Today, I talk about how I’m letting go of the need to set goals and instead create habits for myself. I can feel 2018 is going to be a different (a good) year for me. It’s time.
Thursday 4 January 2018
I’ve decided to read more fiction this year to get my mind thinking more creatively and less about work and structure all the time. I need my mind to wander and be as free-form as possible. I have no idea why I picked this book to read. Maybe because of the rank of Lieutenant on the cover which happened to be my most favourite rank in the Navy when I was serving. The Lieutenant was the first audio book I gave a go (fiction) and it was based (loosely) on historical facts. I don’t know if I would have read it if I found it myself. I found it slow but the audio version made me want to finish it. I’m glad I did. I kept thinking about its lessons long after I finished it.
Wednesday 8 January 2018
Today I talk about the Working Out Loud Circle I am a part of. Every week we need to participate in a Zoom call with a grouup of people who keep us accountable with our goals. Of course, I had to create some goals however, I was more interested in how these are set up and also how to use Facebook Workplace. However, the group is really lovely and I do enjoy the weekly catchups but always feel a tad guilty that I’m not in there as often (I prefer open and public networks than closed groups) however, I realise that for some this may simply be too much. I get that.
Friday 12 January 2018
Today I spoke about the collaboration I’m doing with a couple of other friends overseas around “Learning for Positive Impact”. We believe that the way learning is done within organisations is missing the critical element and the humanistic/personal element that allows people to explore learning in their own way. We are creating a new service around supporting organisations who want to make a positive impact to planet around how to support worker-led learning initiatives that make impact to the world around them. I also talk about how I use video, talk about personal learning networks and a new crowd funding campaign idea that will help me in asking for donations and funds for the free stuff I provide to many people as a way of people giving thanks.
Saturday 13 January 2018
Today, I talk about how I’m using Instagram which I find my “rubbishy social media account”. I never understood the point of Instagram where people use it to look at filtered and fake photos. For a sideline project, I’m acting as a Foreign Correspondent called Shazza Breaknews on a Fake News channel that a small group of us created in Snapchat so I decided that I can use my Instagram to create a Fake Profile for Shazza Breaknews and in the process learn how to use it. I use it to write creative posts around the back story of Shazza and her dim wit cameraman, Mike as well as test some different apps and photo shops. In this story, I show the props I use for Shazza and explain my difficulty in coming up with something to report on every week. Creativity is bloody hard!
Monday 15 January 2018
Today I talk about my trip to Belgium for LearnTech Day Conference where I’m running a workshop on Personal Learning Networks. I talk about the process of how I interact with conference providers and the outline of what I give to them to prepare for the day. I talk about my mindmap/outline for the workshop and then visit my good friend @White_Owly on Twitter in Port Melbourne (which used to be an old Navy haunt for me as my first ever posting was at HMAS Lonsdale – the Navy base long gone now and replaced by trendy apartments).
Tuesday 16 January 2018
Today I talk about how I’m doing the 5:2 diet (so far so good) and how I’m reading an autobiography of Hugh Riminton who is an Australian foreign correspondent with over 40 years in the game. It’s all for research for Shazza and it makes me think the difficulty of the life of these reporters having to go into horrendous situations to report on news so that we see on our daily news over dinner. I don’t think I could ever do that job frankly. It’s also made me realise how news has changed drastically these last few years and how these reporters provided a service without the bias or the ‘fake news’ elements or even opinion based reporting that we see so often nowadays. Something has been lost….sad really.
Friday 19 January 2018
Today, I had a fantastic tour of my home office but somehow Snapchat (the updated version) ate most of my snaps. The new version has been quite glitchy so I can’t wait for them to fix the bugs. It’s taken a while to learn the new version because it’s so different to the old one – it also means I have to completely revise the slides on my workshop on Snapchat for Business. Argh. Serves me right. The updated version will NOT have screenshots anymore – it’s POINTLESS. Things change all the time.
Tuesday 23 January 2018
Today I further explore my PLN workshop for Belgium.
Thursday 25 January 2018
Today I talk about what I’m reading and it’s George Siemens Knowing Knowledge book which is available open source online. I went through the book with a fine tooth comb taking copious amounts of notes and agreeing to many (okay, all of the points). I really do think that “connectivism” – learning for the digital age – is what is needed in companies nowadays but it invokes such a massive cultural change and doesn’t align to the hierarchy, structure and power plays in organisations that I’m beginning to wonder if indeed, organisational will EVER change?
Friday 26 January 2018
Today is Australia Day and I had my first 5th anniversary meetup with my #ETMOOC crowd. ETMOOC was the first guided social learning program (connectivist MOOC) that I did with other educators (I was the only corporate in that crowd) and I LOVED IT. It exemplifed personal and social learning and it was lovely to see and hear what people have been up to since they finished the course. It was the first time I saw the power of MOOCs (not the Coursera kind) but the kind that are open, driven by people themselves.
However, I’ve simply had a hard time explaining to Learning and Development the difference between x and c type MOOCs and how personal and social learning can be used as a motivating force for organisational change. I also make some icecream which is delicious…
Monday 29 January 2018
Today I talk about the importance of having a Personal Learning Network and the need for us to get out of our echo chambers.
Tuesday 30 January 2018
I go for my daily walk in the neighbourhood and talk about a new tool that I’m experimenting with called Zeef (well, actually I’ve been using it for a while but I’ve been revisiting it).
Wednesday 31 January 2018
I go for my daily walk and ask a question about a new crowdfunding idea I have for people who ask me for free advice, introduction to my networks and different ideas to help them in their work. I’d like to help but there’s got to be some give and take. I present my idea for how people can help. This video got much engagement and discussion behind the scenes with a resounding “YES!”to the question I posed.
This blog post by Helen Blunden was written in Melbourne, Australia and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
