Teaching, Learning and Exploration

Category: Professionalism

Cultivate a culture of professionalism by demonstrating professional standards, including the Professional Standards for BC Educators

Men’s Circle Reflection #3

We finally had another circle yesterday, after weeks of not doing so. It was our smallest group yet, and I found that we were all able to be more involved because there was more space and time for each of us. It was myself, and 4 other participants; all of whom had attended every circle thus far.

The circle was a success because we mutually conceived questions and then shared, hearing from each person based on their thoughts, feelings and experiences. The structure was more relaxed than ever before which, I felt, additionally increased ownership and engagement.

After our meditation and individual check-in, I opened the circle to any themes people would like to explore. One participant suggested we discuss loneliness. All agreed, and we proceeded around the circle, sharing our individual challenges, strategies and general wisdom on the topic. This was a rich process; leading to other themes such as identity, attachment and social needs.

I was very proud to feel the circle was effective in satisfying participants’ needs, feeling heard, exploring and connecting. I received very positive feedback from participants and am generally happy with my ability to facilitate a meaningful circle.

 

 

Tech Wisdom

Today Jesse Miller came in and spoke passionately about the possibilities available to us in terms of tech. FIPPA is a good resource to access, but I feel relatively aware of the risks and how to mitigate them. One important factor is to understand the network you are on, and that what you do on private networks can be seen by the operators of that network. Another thing to be vigilant about is your general impression in public and that people may be capturing your image and sharing it broadly. I think it is interesting to think about our relationship with technology, and I really appreciated Jesse’s very human approach; the issues that are uncovered and brought up thanks the the use of these networks.

Network citizenship means we have a proactive and meaningful engagement with the world through a media platform. It is important that we recognize that responsibility because the internet sometimes seems to make its own rules and we have to understand our moral approach to how we use it.

 

Privacy Learning

Today, whilst setting up our wordpress accounts, we  learned how to attribute images in terms. We learned that we can’t just use images copy-pasted into our sites without sourcing a credit. Not having the rights to media you are using is not only unproffesional, it is illegal. It is best if we use open-sourced stock images and then try to find the original source of the images. Websites like creative commons https://creativecommons.org/, or pexels http://pexels.com. 

I intend to use some of my own photographs on my website, that way I have a personal connection to the photos, and I don’t have to worry about ownership!

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