Academic Skills - Sessions Journal

2nd October - Critical Thinking
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In today's session we learnt about critical thinking and how to use effectively in University scenarios. It's uses can range from when you are brainstorming how you are going to structure and write your essay in a sense of problem solving and decision making, to how you analyse and evaluate a situation or piece of work you have to complete.
It also ties in with your overall academic performance. Things such as the ability to make good, decent decisions regarding your work that will benefit you in the future for both reflection and experience. Basic understanding of how to motivate self and get on with your studies with both focus and precision.
One of the main characteristics of a critical thinker is the ability to think independently and have your own opinions and beliefs in such scenarios as group work and peer observation.  

*In session task* :
 "List what you expect of the course, and any of the words of the board of which describes you best"

Expectations - Organisation of the course
                    - To be able to approach lectures with questions and quires
                    - To Achieve the grades I want
                    - To always be able to ask for help/assistance

Words that describe me:

• Punctual
• Honest 2.
• Patient
• Able to negotiate
• Mature
• Good sense of humour
• Self motivated 
• Dependable
• Ambitious 
• Good attendance 
• Enthusiastic
•  Good communicator 
• Friendly 1.
• Creative
• Willing to take risks 3.

(The words with numbers next to them are the top three ones I think I rank) 

*In session task* :
"List ways of good time management and self management"

• Ask fellow classmates to keep you prompt 
• Reminders set on your computer or phone
• Diary or timetable 
• Study groups/arranged help
• Staying on top of social life and work life
• Keeping to a or a schedule
• Frequently checking moodle and email
• Staying productive in an academic sense, e.g taking notes and staying up to date with work.  

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9th of October - Reflective Thinking "Becoming a reflective practitioner" 
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How to reflect on your work was todays session subject.
Reflecting on your work is a big part of University life, as it is important to know and understand where you might have gone wrong and made a mistake, to what you did well and how to keep doing it. Being a reflective thinker is the knowledge of knowing how to make relative improvements to your work, and how to enhance you ability to write and structure essays.
The only way to get good at reflective thinking is to actually experience something, think about what happened, and then learn from the experience. It's as simple as that, and once you know how, you will always be able to better yourself in ways unknown at the time.

Here are some terms with some definitions alongside them which sum up the qualities needed for reflective thinking:

1.  Self Awareness - Thinking of yourself, the experiences you've had, and from your view of the world. 
2. Empowerment - Putting yourself in charge and having the power to make changes to things
3. Self Improvement - Leaning from experience and coming up with strategies as to how to further improve yourself.

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16th of October - Learning to use the following sites: 'keepmeout!' 'StayFocused' 'Diigo'
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KeepMeOut! - http://keepmeout.com/en/

This site's main purpose is to make sure that you do not end up on any social networking sites you might be drawn too as you work, these being sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Youtube, and many more.
The way it works is that it gives you a link to which you would pin to your task bar/bookmark it, and upon using the link the website gave you, it will block all the websites one specified to block from the homepage.
Overall a decent site if you wish to not be distracted!

StayFocused

The next site, which is this long link:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stayfocusd/laankejkbhbdhmipfmgcngdelahlfoji#detail/stayfocusd/laankejkbhbdhmipfmgcngdelahlfoji

This site is a Google Crome exclusive, by this I mean that if you wish to use it you would need to be a Crome user. You would need to go to the Google Crome webstore and download it. (All webstore downloads are free) It is very similar to the site 'keepmeout' site that I just mentioned but this is just Googles version. This probably being the more popular option as it is Google and everybody uses Google.

Diigo - https://www.diigo.com/

Diigo is a great site for uniting all of the necessary sites you need to use together without any real hassle. It also gives you the option to use plenty of different annotation tools, a few being the ablilty to highlight text on the go, (these being digital highlighers) and on screen sticky notes that stay with you as you nagivate around different webpages.
You can also build up your own library of pages, picutures, website links, notes and many more so that you have everything you need in one place saving you the time to have to go about all the different website links.
Diigo overall is a site that is very usable. If you are still not convinced look at the reviews the site got from some of the most renowend companys in the technology and internet circle. Two of the biggest companys that reviewed the site being PC World, and Cnet.

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23rd of October - Guide to Referencing 
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Today's lecture was about the importance of referencing our essays and presentations. The referencing style we have to follow is know as 'Harvard Referencing'.

We reference as it is very important not to plagiarise as ones work would be deemed a copy, and would be written off a fail. An example would be the most used phrase that lectures say, ‘Don’t copy and paste’. This meaning that you can’t simply read what somebody has written and then just take it as your own and post it exactly how it is. What the individual would need to do is to write along similar subject lines, and make sure that they reference correctly, (according to the terms of what referencing style they need.) along the way. Failing to do this would result in your work being deemed void and unusable. It’s very easy to accidentally plagiarism, so it is important for the individual to know how to avoid doing so and correctly reference at all times. 

During this lecture we have been set a task to write and one thousand word essay on the subject 'Creativity as a research method' which is to be submitted for the 6th of November via email and a hardcopy to hand in is required also. 
I have been sent a Rower Point presentation detailing exactly how to Harvard reference correctly, the presentation details how to reference in a number of different scenarios. A few being how to reference the internet, books and journals, and unpublished authors. 
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 6th of November - About Me and LinkedIn
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 The site About Me is a great side for portraying yourself as an individual professionally, as well as personally.  The site allows you have have a whole webpage to yourself where you can input and edit information about yourself, as well as adding relevant pictures to your page. You even able to customise the fonts and colours you use on your page, as well as being able to position the information box wherever you want on the page. This allows you to give the page your own personal feel so that people can see your style and get a sense of your personality just from your pages design.  You can also link up any other social networks you may be part of. These include:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Blogger
• Instagram
• Youtube
• Google+
• Tumblr
• Word Press
• LinkedIn

There are many other apps and sites you can add to your About Me page, the above being some of the most popular. 

You can have an actual YouTube video on your page for viewers to watch which is a cool feature and can be useful to back up the information you state about yourself. An example being that on my page I have said that I am a guitarist, and my video shows me performing guitar live at a show.

LinkedIn is also a similar site but focuses more on your direct skills as an employer. There is an interactive skills and expertise bar where you can listen skills you feel you are good at. Other LinkedIn users can then rate or know on the site as 'endorse' your skills. It's very much like a voting pole only people vote on the skills they feel you are good at. LinkedIn does not allow as much customization as About Me but you can still add in and write plenty of information about yourself if need be.
There is an experience section that allows you to list all of your job experiences and other relevant things to your career and skills. There is also a section that you can list all of your actual qualifications in, things such as degrees, diplomas and other qualification can be listed and linked to the University of college you studied them at.
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11th of November - Prezi and Powtoon
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Prezi is similar to the standard PowerPoint software you may use for presentations, but it allows you to add bigger animation to your presentation and you can have all sorts of odd themes and transitions to your presentation. Prezi is an online service that is free, and to use and a create presentations all you need to do is sign up. There are paid versions of Prezi that you can subscribe too, these versions allowing you to do more than what the free version provides. Prezi is a good thing to use on the go, as it is a website all you need to do is sign in and you can start a presentation from there. A good thing about Prezi is that you just sign in to view your presentations, you do not need to worry about using a memory stick or anything to open your presentation.

Powtoon is similar to Prezi as once again it is a free service that allows you to create a animated presentation. Powtoon focuses more on the animations and transitions between the information that you input in your Powtoon presentation. Powtoon is very easy to use and I think it would be a useful thing to use if you were presenting to younger children as it is very cartoony hence the name 'Powtoon' and is quite colourful and vibrant so it is easy to look up and keep up with.
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18th of November - Feedback of Essay
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(See hard copy of essay)

A brief summary of todays session:
We all got our essays back today with relevant feedback alongside them that detailed exactly how and what to improve on within the essay.

Note: Also we have our lectures on Mondays now rather than the original Wednesdays.
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12th of November - Creative Curriculum Vitae
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In todays lecture we were set a task to produce a creative CV. The CV has to detail all the usual things I CV would have only that it has to be 'creative' in a sense to our chosen pathway. So in my case I will be making my CV musical as I am on the music pathway. This is to be submitted with the portfolio at the end of the module.
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25th of November - Presentation on a Workshop and your Skills and Qualities as a Person
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For next week we are to pre pair a presentation using either PowerPoint, Prezi, or Powtoon. The content of the presentation has to be about yourself as an individual, your skills, past work experience and so on.   We are also to talk about a workshop we would like to do as CAP's and how we would do it, and reasons behind why it is therapeutic and why it would be effective.
I have chosen PowerPoint presentation to do my presentation as I am most comfortable and familiar with this software.
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3rd of December - Presentation Day
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Today I presented my presentation. I was very confident and just wanted to simply get it over and done with. I spoke well and clearly and made sure I made eye contact throughout,  as well as asking people questions relevant to my presentation. I talked about my history as a performer in bands, and a about my academic history and then concluded the presentation with my workshop idea with a question and answer time section.
I made a point of moving around as I spoke, I don't like to just stand behind the desk and talk, to move around a be free as you speak and present is the best approach I feel.
To conclude, I was happy with my presentation and with the feedback I was given.
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9th of December - How to Write Academically and Summary of Academic Skills Module  
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In todays lecture we where show exactly how to write University style essays, and how to format them. Things such as fonts, line spacing, student number etc, We where also told about cover sheets for when you hand in your essays to the TJ Webley building.
We were given a task to read a paragraph somebody had written in first person writing format, and then to re write it in third person with the correct grammar and spelling.
Although I do not have the original incorrect paragraph, here is my correct rewritten paragraph example:

"After world war 2 many things appread to have changed. The current time was evolving, an example being that the class system was moving, allowing men and woman to move up the ladder for better career opportunities.
This can be shown in the film (insert correct reference)."

Overall I have learnt much for academic skills and I will apply the knowledge I have learned most efficiently in any University situation.  This being with both essays and presentations. My knowledge of good networking social media sites has been improved and I find myself using About Me and LinkedIn in my own time now.