I’m hoping that I’ve not lost too many readers while I’ve eben absent from my blog! I find it hard to believe how quickly the weeks have gone by since I last posted.

I thought I’d quickly update what I’ve been involved in, and then hopefully, I’ll expand the entries in later postings. I enrolled in my EdD studies this year, and was totally engrossed for some weeks in the writing of an essay that argued for the importance and value of reflective practice and researching practitioners. Depending on my mark I may post the assignment later…! One of the good aspects of this assignment was that I returned to readings I had considered earlier which is the work by Kielhofner and his colleagues in the UK - Kirsty Forsyth and Lynn Summerfield-Mann on the creating of scholarships of practice. I’m wanting to come back to this literature, and to explore the possibilities with a company I subcontract to here in Dunedin.

I also have been enjoying online collaborations with a group of practitioners and academics in the UK and US which has led to us presenting at the upcoming COT/BAOT National Conference. Last week we joined together using Elluminate to discuss what our presentation would look like. With 40 minutes for the presentation, and 4 presenters, we were able to quickly divide up the topics to be covered, and we’re using a Wikispace to join our efforts together. Its amazing how quickly we were able to reach agreement, given that we’ve never worked together, or met before! I know that as therapists we believe that the non-verbal cues are so important, but in this situation I haven’t at all felt the absence of these cues. Will be interesting to see what the others think (hope you guys use RSS feeds!).

I’ve also just heard that my nomination to a new group formed under the World Federation of Occupational Therapists (WFOT) has been accepted. This group has been proposed and is being led by Louise Schaper from Perth West Australia. I’m sure the group will be openly talking about their work later, but the name of this group is the E-Health International Advisory Group. Louise and I have been discussing how we may use social networking tools (Web 2.0) to support the work of this group with membership from around the world.

Back soonnnnnnn!!!!

I have been trying for a nightly posting, but with time away last week, and planning for honours/masters students coming for their research school this week, I haven’t quite made it.

However, that doesn’t stop me checking where visitors have come from and where they go to as they pass through my blog, or what search terms bring people to my blog (that is deserving of a posting one day)… but tonight I just want to celebrate two things… firstly

…one of the first OT bloggers that I ever found Will Wade is back on the scene….. we had a lengthy chat about Web 2.0, is it a solution looking for a problem…??? Could it support, or facilitate the creation of Scholarship of Practice as proposed by Kielhofner, Forsyth, Summerfield Mann and associates, what do we consider professional development to be and why, and what do we choose and why etc etc… which led us then off on a long tangent about knowledge - is it something ‘owned’ by some to be ’shared or not shared’ with others - what values underpin this reasoning and why do we hold these values.. which led us then to the analogy that knowledge is built on what comes before - just like the street level in the UK which has risen over the centuries - when we look at the buildings off today, what is holding them up but the buildings that have come before! And by then it was quite late in NZ… and Will needed to do some work as well so we called it a day/night! Perhaps I’ll be able to bring in some of our discussions for others to follow through!

Secondly…. I looked at my blog stats… and today I have 6,000 visitors have come through my site since I first started last year. My first posting was in January 2007, but I really got underway on 18 March 2007 with regular postings… I’m not sure that I ever imagined getting to 6000 visits/hits within a year! Thanks to all of those who link to my blog, or who have mentioned my blog - the more we link with each other, the more we’ll give occupational therapists to come looking!!!

Just a short posting tonight as its been a busy day. I’ve been working on an article based on the research we undertook last year with a group of occupational therapists who volunteered to take part in class for  12 weeks to learn about Web 2.0 tools.

Aside from that I had a quick conversation with Sarah the midwife about how we as professionals prioritise our time for our learning versus all the other tasks that we face every day. Sarah pointed me in the direction of Michelle’s blog which I do pop in an out of from time to time (I should read it every day - its such a great blog!).  But anyway - check it out yourself - what do you think - is she right? And how would you answer the question she poses at the end of her posting:

How do you set your priorities? Do you think that you set them to add value or do you find that you’re doing more things to avoid pain? And how does this make you feel about what you do each day?

Last year one of our lecturers James Sunderland undertook the development of a course called Participation in Occupation 1. I’ve just uplifted from the Participation in Occupation 1 blog the aim of this course. It reads:

Course Aim

This course will enable students to focus on participation of people in meaningful occupation. People today are increasingly engaged in occupations that use technology. Students will explore the different ways technology can be used to bring about engagement in occupation of people who have occupational needs, and to consider how technology can be used to enhance therapy services to clients.

The students are introduced to a range of technologies, and encouraged to consider what access to these tools means to them, and therefore how they may be used therapeutically. The students all use blogs to record their learning. Last year they were closed blogs, this year they are all open! So to all those occupational therapy students out there either actively blogging, or actively reading occupational therapy blogs, you absolutely need to check out the 30 odd blogs on Participation in Occupation 1’s blogroll. So here’s a heads up for Karen and all that connect through your blog Karen - hope you connect in a posting to this new blog! Lets encourage these students to be active bloggers, so they will continue to use these tools once graduated and working as occupational therapists for their ongoing learning - and then we could just about take over the blogging world (well maybe a little corner!).

So while I’m showcasing blogs written by students you might also want to check those maintained by the occupational therapy staff….alongside the Participation in Occupation 1 maintained by James.
Jackie’s who focuses on supervision, and more recently on sustainability and permaculture (and people just thought occupational therapists were into baskets and bunnies!). Check out Jackies interests at our school website! Jackie also delivers one of our postgraduate courses Supervision for the Helping Professions (need to update Otago Polytechnic weblink for this course!)

Linda Robertson’s who has several on the go - check out her personal one as well as one she has set up for PG401001 Clinical Reasoning postgraduate course. Linda might have another one or two out there… how about it Linda? Have I missed any? Oh the link to the postgraduate course called Clinical Reasoning - click here

Graeme - a recent recruit to the postgraduate team has a wiki underway for his course (PG403001 Quantitative Research in Practice), but I couldn’t find the link tonight - so will have to come back to update this post. Oh.. his course the mirror to Linda’s Wilson’s PG402001 Qualitative Research in Practice (read on below).

Bronwyn - well she’s not quite on our staff - but we do contract Bronwyn to provide one of our postgraduate courses (PG408001 Pain Management) and being both psychologist and occupational therapist means she often brings very interesting perspectives to the postings she makes. Bronwyn’s is a great indepth and impressive blog - I’m impressed with what she is offering our presentation and can only hope that more occupational therapists access what she has to offer.

And something a little different..

Linda Wilson has decide to use a wiki as a resource for PG402001 Qualitative Research in Practice. This is very much a work in progress and a trial, but I’m really hoping that it will be a resource that people return to. Linda has created an online space that steps this group of therapists through the research process - other visitors can read, but not comment - but you can choose to email Linda separately!

So all in all we are quite active online, in fact compared with some of the occupational therapy programmes internationally, we have a high presence on the web - go Otago Polytechnic, School of Occupational Therapy!!!!

I was just packing up tonight to head home on my bike, reflecting on my last supervision session with an occupational therapist, when Karen popped up on my gmail chat. I stopped to have a quick chat as I’ve hardly had any contact with Karen this year (since I’ve been so quiet online). She was talking about how she was assisting a friend with skills in what I would call skim reading (hopefully I’ve got this right Karen?). After finding out a bit about what they were doing, I suggested that Karen and her friend checked out the VARK website. It seemed to me that perhaps in part her friend may be struggling as she is perhaps more visual, kinesthetic or aural as opposed to a read/writer.

Karen went to the online questionnaire and completed this while we were ‘chatting’. Not surprisingly (well to me anyway).. Karen came out as a reader/writer - perhaps explaining her comfortableness with blogging as a mechanism for developing active reflection. We chatted a bit about the value of completing the questionnaire (and yes I know these have inherent weaknesses!).. but they are a great tool to stimulate the discussions between a student and fieldwork supervisor, or between students in group - while some students must read every word on a worksheet (reader/writers) and others just want to get on with the tasks (kinesthetic). So I find it to be a great tool for facilitating the discussions that can strengthen or clarify expectations between two or more people who need to work well together. Karen has promised a posting on this in the next few days so I’ll look forward to reading her reflections and hearing whether she has managed to get her peer group to complete it as well!!!

And if you are wondering about me.. I’m actually kinesthetic, followed by visual which may explain while every now and then I need a blogging holiday!!!!

I thought readers may be interested in how the meeting of educators and midwives went on Koru Island in Second Life last night. I was a little early and having left myself on Koru Island, it was good to just logon and voila there I was in the middle of the group gathering for the meeting. I was pleased that I had came a little early as since my last sessions in Second Life, it is now possible to ’speak’ using microphones as opposed to just ’speak’ in text. I needed a little help from Arwenna to get this sorted (NB.. if running a meeting in Second Life either a) encourage people to come 24 hours earlier to check they can do everything they need to or b) write out instructions with screenshots to capture the key steps! It took me three attempts to get my voice to work, but finally I was organised, could take a seat (it didn’t have a good view and I didn’t know if I could move it or not!)… and ready to watch the action!

Dacary did a great job of welcoming everyone in.. and also checking track of who was present, or who was trying, ably supported by Arwenna and Isa. It was great to see Leroy there from polytechnic, along with Branwen and Sarah (whose avatar’s name escapes me just now).. Kind of felt more comfortable to know the real people behind the avatars. It was interesting to observe the people entering after me and their comfortableness or otherwise with the medium.. and of course to hear where people were coming from with some from as far afield as the UK (at least it was only morning for them), and the US (3am in the morning - now thats passion for you!).

I think the start was a little slower than Dacary had hoped for as it took nearly 15 or so minutes for people to arrive, find their voices, find their seats, and introduce themselves. Some people’s connection was obviously not great and so they popped in and out. Some of us (including me) were still teaching themselves how to talk and so kept turning on the mike accidentally which interrupted others (big hint - don’t use the shift key as the on/off switch if you also use this key when you type messages).. Dacary was eventually able to get underway with her presentation using a powerpoint type presentation on a large screen. This was clear, it was so lovely to hear a real voice talking through the key points (as opposed to having to read text).. and also to then follow the discussion that proceeded afterwards. As in any communication where you can’t see each other - there is always the silence after a question is asked as its still not possible to see if people are thinking, looking at each other to work out who is going to talk first etc!

One of the comments raised by one of the UK midwives (I think).. was that while it was good to talk about Second Life, it would be great to take a topic that was profession specific that would be the focus of the interactions to see how well then Second Life supported the interaction that might occur in a similar real face to face event. This seemed to me to be a great idea as most people appeared to have come along to get a feel for what Second Life may have to offer for them in midwifery research or education.

Anyway.. it as an interesting hour, gave me lots of ideas of what I could consider/plan/think about should I ever try to offer something like that for OT’s - how about it Karen - keen to have a try again?

Sorry - I have no photos - was too busy trying to keep notes of what was talked about for Carolyn, ensuring I didn’t keep hitting the shift key accidentally, and just soaking up the atmosphere to manage the camera as well! But I’m very impressed as Sarah has done a screencast of her impressions of the meeting, as well as including photos of the meeting - so go check it out - listen to it and watch the slides!

Having been very quiet in the last couple of months on my blog, it’s not surprising I’ve also not had much time to keep exploring in Second Life either! But that’s about to change again as I join a meeting tonight (2100 New Zealand Time) of midwives and educators. Two midwives at Otago Polytechnic who are very inspirational in their drive to master Web 2.0 tools are Sarah Stewart and Carolyn McIntosh. Carolyn has organised tonights meeting on Koru Island and has happily agreed to my attendance (given I’m not a midwife or midwifery academic!). It will be interesting to see how it goes as our professions are both very quiet in Second Life!

There are two exceptions to this though - one is the Thomas Jefferson University where the School of Occupational Therapy has used space on Second Life for a number of events include Backpack Awareness Week led by Dr Susan Toth-Cohen The other is Dr Fran Babich who has been actively exploring Second Life. I know that Karen has also dipped her toe into Second Life but left relatively quickly when confronted with rather ‘interesting’ people.

It seems to me that if we are to understand this ‘virtual world’ and to explore it’s possibilities then maybe occupational therapists need to do what Carolyn is doing - finding a place to meet that is safe, teleporting in the newbies to the ’safe space’ so that they aren’t confronted with some of the ‘interesting people’.. and then using this space to discuss/explore and consider the possibilities. If I think too few OT’s are using blogs, wikis and other Web 2.0 tools… then there is even less of us (like 3 maybe).. who have a professional presence in Second Life (therefore not excluding those who have a personal presence separate to their professional roles!).

Will be interested to see what people think….. and I’ll be back with photos (if I can ever get the camera to pan properly) from tonight’s meeting. Oh.. check out here the photo of Carolyn and I as our personas (thats the top photo) Dacary Dumpling and Koru Bracken in Second Life.

I had a few moments last night and having been out of the blogging sphere for a month or so (is it truly that long - I’m surprised Karen hasn’t been after me!)…. Anyway, I checked out the Salford Occupational Therapy blog and came across Sarah’s reflections on what it was like to be a student in 1991. I had a wee giggle about her descriptions of her learning and how she managed about the internet and this sparked off my own reminiscing!

Like Sarah I still believe much of what I learned 26 years ago is still relevant today (I wonder how many other professions can say that?). I learnt about activity analysis, I learnt about assessment, I learnt the OT process, and I learnt to think about what it was I was doing and why! And yes I handwrote my assignments, but I don’t think there were as many words as Sarah’s!

Much of our learning came from our fieldworks - one full year of our three years was on fieldwork placements and some of us (not me).. were on fieldwork 3 weeks into our first term (semester) on the course! We worked with senior OT’s (well in those days anyone who had worked more than 5 years was considered to be so knowledgeable and so senior!)… and learnt much about the reasoning process (we didn’t know it was called that then).

We also learnt much from our tutors - as they provided us with the important knowledge deemed necessary for us to understand. Anne Cronin Mosey’s text on Three Frames of Reference for Mental Health (1970) had recently made it into New Zealand.. and we knew the tutors were about a chapter ahead of us in the text - but at least they were exposing us to this level of thinking!

So although Sarah wonders how she managed without the internet, email and computers.. I’m left wondering not only how did we manage with computers, but how we managed without a library etc etc. Oh.. we did have a library, but we never needed to go there and were certainly not directed to go there. In fact I can’t remember where it was in my first two years, the new building was opened only in our third year. We bought our OT texts - an English one in first year (McDonald).. and Willard and Spackman (5th ed)… along with Mosey’s texts (Three frames of Reference and Activities Therapy) and with a few medical/surgical texts, this is what we used!

I remember in my last year, last week going to the library and copying articles from the journals as I knew I probably wasn’t going to be able to access them ever again! (unless I lived in Wellington and even then - when I did in my third year as an OT.. it didn’t even cross my mind to go there and it was only two minutes along the road from me at one point!!!). I’m not sure if I ever read the journal articles I copied but I did keep them for a long time!

You may think I spent heaps on copying - but there were so few journals at that stage - or so few that we had access to… probably from memory it was the American Journal of Occupational Therapy and  the British Journal of Occupational Therapy and of course the New Zealand Journal of Occupational Therapy! The number of occupational therapy texts we could probably count on one hand. Developments in the profession were driven by the Americans, British and possibly the Canadians…

Do I think my learning was somewhat limited - I guess yes in that it was limited to what the tutors thought was important to tell us, show us or give us. We weren’t encouraged to read more widely, or even to source material more widely. We were encouraged to rote learn what it was we needed to know to pass the exams, or presentations.  In practice the supervisors showed us what we needed to know, and checked our understandings through what we did probably more than what we were able to explain.  Does this mean our qualification wasn’t great? I think not.. it prepared us very well for the world of practice that existed then… but the practice has changed and therefore the way in which learning is organised has changed. In addition, our means of communication has changed, and therefore the way we deliver learning also changes.  And this is not new - I think I only need to go back about 10 years before I trained, and occupational therapy was taught within a hospital setting!

And I also know the programme was good as a good many of the therapists I studied with are still in practice and these therapists often are excellent supervisors - their knowledge is sound, as is their ability to clearly articulate the OT process for student occupational therapists.

So thanks Sarah for the posting which took me back down to memory lane! Was it simpler - sure it was - the amount of knowledge appeared more finite, the settings we worked in more alike and less variable, there was strong OT teams and you came back to your nice safe OT dept whenever you felt threatening, and….patients were in hospital longer, therefore more rehabilitation happened under the guidance of other occupational therapists.  So yes I guess it was simpler!

On the second day of our residential school for the EdD (see my earlier posting), I had the opportunity to outline my initial thoughts about the topic I plan to investigate in the EdD. The first opportunity was during a class on quantitative research methods. The lecturer asked for some examples from the class - what were we thinking of doing, and then he went on to give examples of how a study framed by quantitative research methods might look. While the discussion was interesting, I realised that I need to be far more specific about the focus - which for me really needs to be about informal learning or unintentional learning and the creating of personal learning environments. Examples initially given in class were about me setting up for an example and online course, and then looking at the learning etc that occurs and other good ideas. However, the more the discussion headed down this track the more I realised that this isn’t what I want to look at (I did something like that in 1997/8 when I collected data for my masters thesis!).So.. at the end of the day, I sat with one of the staff of the programme and talked through again my ideas and this time I made sure I provided more of the background to my thinking and therefore where I might head. This person was able to understand what I was about which was a relief to me! So here it goes again - I’d be keen to see what others who stop to read this post think….. any feedback, resources or links gratefully welcomed!

My thoughts are…

we know that learning has occured when we see a change in behaviour

We continue to learn as we practice on a daily basis - some of this learning is formal, some informal, and some incidental or unintentional learning.

With increasing requirements learning has become more externally prescribed - ie HPCAA, performance appraisals and even audits against standards. The practitioner has less and less experience in defining learning needs, and determining how these needs can be met as learning becomes much more about the individual’s fitness to practice.

With external drivers such as I’ve outlined, formal learning becomes the focus for the practitioner, as with formal learning comes evidence of achievement. The practitioner has less experience in managing their learning, and in effect pays less and less attention to how it is they learn.

My thesis is that if we don’t pay attention to the ways in which we learn, we are less likely to be alert to or see alternatives for learning. We start to take what is offered even when it doesn’t fully meet our needs.

Other areas of movement - in some way linked…. a shift to lifelong learning, with an emphasis on being self-directed.

To engage in lifelong learning, we need to know what provides effective learning experiences for us, and we need to know what is possible for us.

So I’m interested in the intersections between professional development (specifically the informal, or unintentional learning that occurs), what tools are available to support this type of learning, and what this means for our profession (which is predominantly female, older, kinesthetic in learning style and probably other factors as well).

What I would like to do is work with a group of therapists (can be quite small) who are keen to look at learning how to manage their learning, keen to explore a range of tools that may support that process, and interested in describing for me how this type of learning compares with previous learning experiences. The group could be a group of academics, or could be a group of students, or a group of therapists who have the support of their senior manager to do this at work. Another group that would be great to work with would be a group similar to that proposed by Kielhofner and Forsyth (see for example this link)

This researchers are searching for mechanisms to close the theory-practice divide coining the phrase scholarship of practice… Working together therapists and academics created a community of practice. I wonder whether Web 2.0 tools could support the ongoing work of these communities of practice.

so if you’ve stayed with me until the end of this, please do get in contact with me - it doesn’t matter if you are in the northern hemisphere, as I will be on sabbatical next year and able to come to the other side of the world if need be!

Look forward to comments, thoughts, pointers etc.

Well its been a while since I made an entry here - the end of year activities certainly caught up with me. After a good break and several holidays out of Dunedin, I’m not back to work, back to study, and back to blogging!  For those readers who have popped back from time to time, I hope you are still popping back as this blog will continue to be updated regularly in 2008.  There will be heaps to talk about as I’ve finally taken the plunge and enrolled in a EdD (Doctor of Education) at the University of Otago.  Its a professional doctorate, and on Monday afternoon 16 people sat around a ‘U-shaped table’ for the beginning of the first residential school. The programme is designed for distance learners, although funnily enough many of the first cohort are Dunedin based. However, as some of us were discussing - the reason for taking it, is that even when the programme is based in your home-town, flexibility is desired.

I’ll describe more about the programme (as I understand it from a student perspective) in a later posting but for now.. here is the link to the site (just in case you are thinking about your goals for 2009…). One of the requirements is to produce a portfolio of the impact on practice… so I’ll start by blogging my thoughts here, as a basis for this portfolio.

So a new entry is about to be posted outlining my thoughts and an invitation - do read on!