Ideas for my artefact

From the start of the inquiry process I have had some strong ideas for my professional artefact.

Due the the nature of our professional practice and the role social media plays with in it, I decided I wanted part of my artefact to be compatible for this. 

My artefact will have two parts to it, one will be a video with both audio and visual elements. The video will represent my findings and the importance they have to my professional practice and community. The reason I want it to be in video form is so that it can reach the optimum amount of professional peers as possible. In our social media savvy worlds it's so easy to click share on Facebook or Twitter, Upload a video to YouTube, or send a video via what's app! I want my video to have that potential. 

In combination with the video I will produce a small booklet, which will include pictures and written information. The reason for adding the booklet is to add another aspect for my academic audiences. From my research my professional peers prefere entertaining videos over reading booklets, however I feel for my academic audiences I want to put something down on pan and paper. It will also help with reinforcing my findings for those who also watch the video. 

I would really appreciate some thoughts? To see if you would enjoy the combination of artefacts as either an academic or professional peer? 

Inquiry title

It's so important to get the right title for the inquiry as it sets you up for the next 6000 words! 

However I'm struggling to come up with the 'right one' if there even is such a thing?

For those who don't know what my intended Inquiry is about I will enlighten you by giving you a brief summary. Maybe then you will be able to point me in the right direction for my title. 

My inquiry is based on a combination of literature. Books by Malcolm Gladwell and David Epstein brought to me views based upon psychologist Anders Ericsson. Malcolm Gladwell based upon Ericssons theory's and others experiments believes that the only way to become accomplished in your chosen profession is to practice for 10,000 hours or more! David Epstein argues that other factors come into play, such as genes, talent, ethnicity etc. Finding the core of both these men's views brought me to Ericsson who looks at the whole picture. In his journals he looks at what produces the elite performer. Hard work, talent, genes, circumstance, parental support, motivation, commitment amongst other aspects. A lot of these I can personally apply to myself and my journey into becoming a professional dancer, however I wanted to know what other factors dancers apply to themselfs in order to be the best that they can be. How do they continue their professional development in order to become an elite athlete? Do they apply specific techniques inspired by world renowned choreographers? Or do they just go with the flow and hope for the best? Moreover why do we even want to be elite? And at the top of our game? What benefits does that create for us?

There are a lot of questions to be explored and answered.

I feel this inquiry has validity and my findings will be there to help not only myself and the rest of my professional practice but also the next generation of dancers. My inquiry won't produce a magic cocktail to transform you overnight into being the best, however it will provide guidance and help to push many of us in the right direction.

I would really appreciate your comments below. 

Here are a few sample titles, let me know what you think!

1. How do we as dancers become elite? And why does that matter?

2. How does continual professional development effect us as dancers, and why we should be the best that we can be? 

3. Elite performers, how do we become one? 

Back to reality!

This week I flew half way around the world to embark on my next adventure, four months on the Dawn Princess cruising around the world. Now I am back on board I have remembered how bad the Internet is. My resources in comparison to home have completely changed. 

I don't have 24 hour access to wifi, instead I have to pay for very few minutes on a very dodgy system and wait until were in port to find a decent connection. But since we are in install for the next few weeks port time is also going to be very limited. I also no longer have my own space and have to share in a very small cabin with lovely bunk beds! Which makes working on my inquiry a bit more tricky. Another aspect to add is its hard to access printers and scanners unless your willing to do favours for certain people those items are normally off limits!

 On the plus side the focus on my inquiry lies within my cast of dancers. They will be the people I interview and use as my focus group, all of them have already concented to be part of my inquiry so I'm excited to have them all literally on my doorstep. 

Being in install at the minute limits my time I can give to my inquiry however as soon as that's over every spare minute I have will be dedicated to this inquiry. I feel time management is important which is why before I embarked I did everything I could and now will dedicate all my time out of install to this inquiry.

My next step is to conduct my focus groups and interviews how ever myself and my cast are currently uprooted and are situated in different cabins all over the ship to accommodate our handover. Thankfully this ends in three days and we will get our proper cabins back and everyone can settle in. Once this has taken place I will schedule my focus groups and interviews to take place. 

Meanwhile I will continue to keep in contact with my sig groups and also continue carrying out my literature reviews. 

Progression...

While continuing it I focus on the development of my inquiry I have come to the conclusion of another change.

During module two I decided to include a survey into my inquiry however I have now changed my mind. I feel that because of the change of direction in my present inquiry a survey is no longer required.

I have decided that both the focus groups and the interviews will provide enough sufficient data to be analysed. I have revisited the pros and cons of all of the methods and came to the verdict that surveys wouldn't be of much value to me as I feel the questions may be rushed, or even ignored. Also I want an expert and well informed view and in some cases questions can be misunderstood in the likes of a survey so I feel both focus groups and interviews are the way to go for the information I want to gather.

I'm currently making a spider gram to make sure my ideas are concise and to make sure I know exactly what I want to find out from my inquiry and therefor will develop the questions to ask in both my focus groups and interviews. Blog to follow soon!....

Inquiry changes...

After reading endless amounts of literature I decided it was time to sit down and get started on making changes to my initial inquiry. It's been a while blogging due to work commitments however I am striving to complete module three this term, wish me luck! I have two weeks before returning to the seas so I am going to get on top of as much as I can.

When reflecting on my inquiry I realised that I was constricting myself by just looking into one theory. Due to that realisation I have been reading a lot to try and expand my theory and influences. I came across David Epstein's book 'the sports gene' which challenges Malcolm Gladwell's theory of the 10000 hour rule. This opened my mind and enabled me to think of other aspects of elite athleticism  and therefore encouraged me to look into their influences to see what else I could find.

I am still on the fence regarding the final title as my inquiry has shifted. I will post a couple in the next few days and see what the best response is.

I have also changed a particular aspect of my inquiry due to my current job. Previously I was going to look into the musical theatre profession however due to my current job dancing on a cruise ship I felt it was to my advantage to use the resources I had to hand. A cast of 10 brilliant dancers! Due to the lack of resources you have working on a cruise ship I felt where I can I would use what I had to my advantage and due to the fact the Internet and phone often fails to work it would be better to change this dynamic. It also fits well with my current inquiry change looking into elite athleticism.

I am about to dive into completing my literature reviews which I am slightly apprehensive about however on my completion I will post them in hope of some feedback!

Since I have interrupted I'm not sure of any others on this stage of module 3 so please let me know if you are in the same situation also if you have already completed your help would also be much appreciated!

Until next time!

Blogger bogged down under!

So first of all I just want to send my apologies for being so off the radar the last few months. 

First off all my lack of correspondence is due to me delaying this module until next semester thanks to a new job. 

Early July I was offered a job dancing with Princess cruises which led to me flying out the country with in three weeks to start and intense rehersal schedule in LA. It was a great experience and now I am floating around between Australia, NewZealand and Fiji on one of their ships doing several shows a week! As I haven't worked on a cruise ship before I decided that until I knew my working environment it may be sensible to delay module 3. Now I have began to settle into more of a routine I have decided to undertake the first few steps of re visiting my plan and ironing out any creases. 

I look forward to looking at some of the blogs that have been uploaded in the past few months, sadly it will take longer than usual as the wifi here is awful! So until I'm in port and situated in a good cafe with a better connection it will have to wait. Although I am beginning to suss out the better places in each port for wifi so hopefully can get on top of that soon. 

Please don't think I'm rude if I ignore or don't reply to anything on Facebook, I will try to as much as I can but like I said the wifi here makes things very hard! If anyone else has deffered to I will keep an eye out so we can correspond next term too. 

Like I said I'm going to try and attempt the first few stages so would love some comments and I look forward to seeing everyone's plans and inquiry's take place. 

That's all for now..... Until the next decent wifi connection!

The day has come!!

Submission day is upon us!! After reading Paula's blog about the holiday pictures I decided I had the perfect one to fit the bill. I sent all my stuff of a little early as I am currently on holiday in Italy. I feel this image sums up last term and my journey so far, reflection!