Day 1-31 Day Challenge

image: Salford Quays
I have decided to take the 31 Day Challenge to become a better blog citizen given my recent post. This challenge has been designed to encourage people to think about how they comment on blogs and how they create a space for people to comment on their own blogs and entails a number of actitivites through the 31 days of May 2008. The challenge has been set by a number of bloggers - specifically Michelle Martin and Sue Waters.
Day 1 of the Challenge involves running an audit of my comment behavior - what are my comment skills and strategies? To help in the audit, I have been asked to review an article about blog comments written by Gina Trapanui.

How often do you comment on other blogs during a typical week?
I guess there is no such thing as a typical week. I try to have a look at a few blogs each evening but I will admit that I don't always leave a comment - either through lack of confidence, lack of inspiration and/or lack of stimulation

Do you track your blog comments? How? What do you do with your tracking?
No, I ahve never really considered that this would be either possible or useful. But I can now see that to have a way of tracking whether my comments had created further discussion would be useful - particularly if I am to push myself to write more comments on more blogs.

Do you tend to comment at the same blogs or do you try to comment on at least one new blog per week?
I have my favourite blogs that I visit and track for new posts - usually people's blogs that I have met through blogging or have been directed towards from blogrolls of sites that I have found interesting or useful.

But I also make a point of trying to leave comments on others blogs - particularly those blogs within the occupational therapy profession in an effort to expand my network and also to try to attract people back to my blog. Not sure if this works or not as a strategy though as my post will testify.

Gina Trapanui's advice on leaving comments
On the whole I agree with everything Gina says about things like being courteous, keeping to topic and adding to the thread. On the whole, I am pretty good at sticking to the guidelines that Gina suggests although I fear I may occasionally add a comment that is more of a supportive statement than an addition to a debate or discussion. But then again - I actually think that some bloggers would want just some recognition that their posts are bein read- even if they don't all spark major debate.

Launch of MSc in Advanced Occupational Therapy

Hi,

This is not a blog as such, but we hope that some of our UK readers will come and join us for drinks and canapes prior to finding out all about our brand new international online programme. You will hear from eminent speakers and have the opportunity to try out some of the online learning materials as well as to chat to the tutors who will be working with you.

The event takes place at the University of Salford in the Mary Seacole Building on Wednesday 23rd July 2008 at 5.30 until 7.30.

If you would like to come, please register your interest by leaving a comment below or by visiting our Facebook page "Occupational Therapy at the University of Salford" and clicking on "events". We'd like to have an idea of numbers for catering purposes please.

For our international readers, we will have further news soon regarding how you can also be part of this exciting event so watch this space!

Thankyou for reading, hope to see you there.

Is there anybody out there?

Those of you who are regular readers of our blogs will know that we have been busy developing an MSc Advanced Occupational Therapy to be delivered totally online. In order for this to happen many of us have been engaging in web 2.0 applications to facilitate our programme development but also to engage in learning experiences that we will be asking our students to undertake. To this end I have enrolled on an online programme which week by week has introduced me to some extremely interesting and useful tools for both learning and social networking.
It has become clear to me that the common theme underpinning all of these is the need to know if anyone is out there and the importance of acknowledging each other. Engaging in an online community can only really be effective if you know there is a community out there. Under usual circumstances we engage with others through gestures, tone of voice - or by presence (or indeed absence). On line these things cannot be noted - therefore it is extremely hard to know if anyone is listening, agreeing or indeed disagreeing. We have had over 2000 readers of our blog posts - yet very few of you have left a trace. That first step can be daunting - make a comment -write what you feel - it doesn't have to change the world, it doesn't have be an essay - just let us know you're out there. Click on "comment" at the end of this (or any other) post and up will pop a window for you to type in your comment. Give it a go - it may be the first step of a whole new learning experience for you - and if all else fails - it can be evidence of an aspect of your CPD to demonstrate engagement in discussion with peers both nationally and internationally!!!
Happy commenting...

Do Clinicians make good researchers?

I attended an interesting session today in the University about Qualitative research. Within this we looked at the skills and techniques that can be used by the researcher to help them to gain a better understanderstanding of the phenomenon or an individual's experience of this phenomenon. It struck me that many, if not all, of these skills are skills that a clinician uses routinely with patients or clients, such as encouraging, leaving pauses between questions and answers, gentle probing and so on. Does it therefore follow that clinicians make natural and effective researchers when using a qualitative design? I wait with interest for any thoughts on this.