Its been a busy week and time seems to have flown by, I think that this has been the first opportunity I have had to sit down and actually write my own blog, so apologies for the delay, I really should practice what I preach and make time to do this at the end of every day.
Saying that I have spent a lot of time reading others blogs this week and I’ve been really impressed by the quality of some of the posts and the reflection within them. It seems that many of the sessions and activities have provoked some interesting thoughts among the group, starting on the very first day with the Hospital tour. Questions were raised around the different practices that exist across Europe and despite not being a nurse I found it fascinating. As a wider group there were also questions around time management, the language barrier and the socio cultural differences, all really interesting points and I have responded to some of these on your blogs.
I think what has really surprised me though is how people have taken to the use of technology on the programme, from what I can see no one has really questioned why or how we use it, and it has certainly been used more extensivly than previously, everyone is just getting on with it and seem to be enjoying it. The Facebook group and blogs are certainly more active than in previous years, which is great to see and we seem to be getting a balance between the social aspects and the work aspects, using it collaboratively as a tool to facilitate the group work for the student conference. This has been a bit of a relief really as it’s always a worry when you think an external examiner might ask to look at the group and they see lovely shots of mericamping and traditional Finnish meals but little evidence of work, despite knowing how much work has gone into the programme so far. I think though we have got a good balance and in many ways it reflects the programme itself where both work and socialising as group are important.
I remember the first year we ran the IP we had a number of students who expressed a real concern about the use of tools such as Facebook and blogs and were really concerned about their public nature. We have tried to address these concerns which is why we use a closed Facebook group and also talk about the ethics of using Facebook and blogs as a nurse, clearly there is a code of conduct that nurses follow and this can be applied quite effectively to the use of social media. In many ways I think other students from different disciplines could benefit from similar guidelines as the internet makes peoples lives so public, as Caroline said many employers would Google a prospective candidate as a matter of course to get a feel for who they are potentially employing, right or wrong this happens so it’s important people consider this when using social media tools. Online identity and how we portray ourselves online is becoming more and more import.
I also love the way that technology can be real leveler especially in groups such as ours where often students are more confident with the technology than the academics or those who wouldn’t necessarily speak up in class but can find a voice online and really shine. I heard there is a Finnish saying “that in the sauna all are equal”, and in some ways technology is similar, you could say “in Facebook all are equal” and that fits well with the whole underpinning ethos of the programme where we use co-operative enquiry, we are all students and all have something to offer. I would be interested to hear others thoughts on the idea of whether social media tools do make us more equal as a group and bring down some of the barriers that exist or does it in fact raise other barriers where it puts those who more confident with technology at an advantage?
Anyway I will leave you with that thought and try to post more regularly over the next week.
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