Driving in the U.K.

Hello Everyone,

So, during the week, it was my first time ever driving on U.K. roads…and there was one major difference that stood out to me from the roads in the U.A.E.

This was the size of the road lanes. Oh, my goodness, they are incredibly tight! I could be feeling this more because I am so used to another two feet on either side of me. This aspect of driving in the U.K.  scared me and made me nervous. It reminded me of a scene from the movie ‘The Holiday’. Where Cameron Diaz’s character is driving on U.K. roads for the first time too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymGpwwkyrxk – Link for the scene in the movie.

For the first half, an hour I was convinced that other drivers were going to hit my car! Until my partner pointed out that if I look at the roads there is a distinct pattern on them/a guide. He said-

‘Just look at the road there is a shiny part then a darker part then again another shiny part. Put yourself in the middle of the dark middle part and you will be fine. The road is like that because of wear and tear of where other people drive on the road. So really if you follow that path you will be okay.’

He was right! As soon as I chose to go down one guide down the road I felt reassured that myself, passengers and the car was a lot safer. I am still quite nervous about how much or should I say how much space isn’t there, I have for the lanes but I feel comforted that I have a guide of where I should be.

On reflection, I realised that this is how I feel about the Module 3. I am so nervous that something is going to go wrong or I will do something wrong that I start to feel stressed. I started to think of what I feel is a guide just like the road to help reassure me. I decided my guides or path that I use to reassure my self is a variety of things on the course. The module handbook, the readers, skype sessions and the SIG groups. I find reaching out to these contacts extremely useful because it calms me to talk about everything that may be a worry or to do with my inquiry. So even though I might start to feel nervous and scared and make the facial expressions that Cameron Diaz does in ‘The Holiday’ while this journey continues, I know that to find my path/guide I just need to reach out to some of the above example.

To add onto SIG groups, when talking to Paula during the skype session last Tuesday, we briefly talked about the definition of what makes a SIG group. I believed that your SIG group was only a SIG group if your inquiry topics were similar but per Paula, it doesn’t have to be just that! It can be with people with different topics if you talk about your inquiry and help each other out as another form of communication within the course, that makes it a SIG group. So, I started that session with one SIG group and ended it with three!

Thanks for reading.

Cassie V.   

25.10.16 Skype Session

Hello Everyone!

Last Tuesday I attended Paula’s skype session and it was brilliant! We covered so many topics that reassured me that I was on the right track for this inquiry. It was great to talk about our inquiries and relate it to the topic which Paula had arranged for the skype session; Creativity and Analysis.

I will be writing about some of the analysis points that we covered. Within the skype session Paula introduced the analysis triangle. See below.

                                                                                      Data

                                                      Literature                                            Experience     

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Triangle_model_of_love.png 

We talked about how you needed all three of the parts of this triangle to create a strong analysis review.  We decided to start with literature. The last skype session Paula mentioned we needed about 10-20 resources for the literature section. Now when I heard this, I was quite unsure how I would be able to read that many books in such a short time, plus write it, submit drafts and prepare for the artefact and the oral presentation. Considering this journey ahead, I started to re think what other resources there might be. I remembered from my high school days that we were encouraged to look at TED videos. I started there and I can’t believe the amount of different resources I found just from thinking outside the norm. So, don’t worry about the 10-20 amount of resources being all books for this inquiry, I mean if you want that, that’s absolutely your decision but, for myself I will be using a varied amount of different resources to get the greatest understanding for my topic area.

Secondly we talked about the data and how our research methods were going. Linda mentioned how she loved interviewing everybody for her inquiry. After a while we talked about how when we interview that we must accept their answers for their answers, even if they aren’t ones we were expecting. These interviews will give us opinions and different views on our topics, we shouldn’t be afraid of that, we should embrace it! As it all helps to find what our response will be to the inquiry.

Thirdly, we talked briefly about how our experiences will also affect our results in the inquiry. All of the above all play a very important part when you write your analysis section, and from these three parts of a triangle you will form opinions and interpretations. Paula explained very clearly that there is a huge difference between one’s opinion and interpretation of the results. She used these examples-

1.       Opinion- ‘I like the colour green or red’

2.       Interpretation- ‘Is based on the results that you have collected’

These two words in my thoughts sum up the entirety of the analysis section because the inquiry is based on a topic of interest to you, this means that you would already form an opinion on what you would like the results to be. As well as being human we make our own opinions on the information of what people say and do. It is only natural! Even though your opinion is important, I think it is important to remember that you will need to form an opinion on the interpretation of the results. I like to think of it as a sort of wave structure-

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=wave+sound&view=detailv2&&id=84B595EB0AF8C744E9D89232902F26A6B1BCFF5A&selectedIndex=14&ccid=MxoR0O8E&simid=608043975921896180&thid=OIP.M331a11d0ef04f6bf8bc6d70f82e9bd21o0&ajaxhist=0

Here is my wave link to how to create your analysis response.

Inquiry Focus                             Literature Review                                   Personal Experience

                         Data Collection                                 Data Interpretation                                    Conclusion/Opinion/Findings

Make sure you make decisions/opinions based on the evidence from your data collection methods, experience and the literature! Don’t make them just because that’s what you would prefer the result to be.

I found this skype session so helpful, and if you missed it, there is an amazing slideshow on Paula’s blog to help explain this next part in the journey.

Thank you for reading!

Cassie V.