With just two Open Badges left to work for (waiting for access to documents for Badge 20), this is one of the last submissions for SSSC 23 Digital. At first I thought I knew a lot about ICT, Social Media and the like. Turns out there were still a lot of services and programmes that I was not aware of. Things like Coggle, the meanings of CC & BCC, looking for different resources and seeing how quickly you could find me through my name on Google search. I changed my rating for Capability and Confidence up to Very High but kept Relevance to High. This is because I feel you are constantly learning in your role and I am sure there will be more programmes and websites that I am unaware of that can support me in my practice. I will certainly implement some aspects of 23 Digital into my practice such as the online mind maps for my qualification, listening to more podcasts on early years and maintaining my professional social media accounts such as LinkedIn. I will also keep learning about I know of some of my colleagues that are not too confident ICT wise so feel these different badges will support them. If there was the opportunity to develop a resource for my setting, I would be more than happy to support this.
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There are some elements of ICT which work well for my setting. Nearly every staff member has access to their own laptop and iPad which has access to the City Council Sharepoint. We have Seesaw which is very interactive for staff & families and is where all observations are written up. Each room has a Smart screen which the children can interact with and we can look up anything from kids yoga to nursery rhymes. The children can also play with Beebots and an interactive magic carpet. Wearable technology is probably more recognised as an Apple Watch a member of staff would wear. It would be interesting to see this implemented into the children’s learning, especially when they are active outside. It would be interesting to have more resources with facial and voice recognition so the children can learn more about how they speak and recognise different body parts. One main thing I would like to see is ICT that doesn’t break or come apart, as that is a common problem working with toddlers. Technology is constantly changing so who knows what else will be created to support early years.
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I guess you never really think what’s going to happen to your social media when you pass away. I have known some people who have passed away and have seen a couple of their Facebook accounts become a memorial account, some are just left with no updates, other accounts are deleted. If I was still working with ASN adults in care and housing support, I guess it would have to be something for me to help the people we support with. I found it tricky for me to fill in the social media will, trying to think of someone who would close the account for me. It is great to see the Digital Legacy Association provide information on how to access these social media accounts once someone has passed. It’s also good they recommend the person downloads content so it would be easier for their family to access.
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I provided feedback to both the SSSC 23 Digital Padlet and Google Drive document. I liked the look of Padlet, how the comments were small text boxes. I’ve also voted on the poll and created my own poll myself (click the picture if you would like to vote). What I would say about the Doodle poll was I did not know how to add an option onto it. I would have liked to add Early Years Resources onto the poll. Instructions on how to do that would have been great. Creating a poll on Twitter was pretty straight forward, you could write what your options were and still include hashtags in the tweet. Now I just need some people to vote for the options (I’m an 8-6 incase you were wondering)
It was good to see other people’s comments on the 23 Digital Series, how they felt and what advice they were able to provide. Of course a priority for me was to make sure my setting was not mentioned in any of the feedback I provided. I found out after posting on Padlet that I could have posted anonymously which probably would have been a better option. I hope the feedback I provided will be helpful to other people wanting to achieve the Open Badges.
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I use notes on my Apple devices regularly, I do have notes for work that can only be accessed by password or thumbprint at the start. Most recently, I had information that I needed to remember about my setting before the Care Inspectorate came to visit. I also have a premium Microsoft Office where I can also access OneNote, I tend to use Microsoft Word and Excel the most though. I did have a look at both Evernote and SimpleNote. SimpleNote was well named as it was simple to use, yet I already have notes so I did wonder why I would need another app. Evernote looked really confusing the first time, it would take me a while to get used to it. Also it asked me to join Premium three times in one use.
I had never heard of Coggle before this activity and I can say that it will definitely be used by me in the future. I had an assignment where I had to create a mind map and it doesn’t look too neat written out. Whereas with Coggle, I could do my mind map online, make it all fit into one section and it looks more professional. It is annoying that I would have to pay to change the colours so you have no choice in that but it’s a simple programme to use. I will definitely pass on knowledge of this programme to my colleague who is also doing her SVQ.
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Aberdeen City Council has a few social media profiles, there is a Twitter profile specifically for Early Years within the local authority. My setting has their own website and a private Facebook group for parents and that’s about it. We do use Seesaw to communicate with parents which is like a private social network just for parents and staff. I feel that my setting respects the privacy of all families and already has good communication so I do not feel that we need to have social media profiles. If we did, we would need to get permission from all families before posting about anyone. I follow SSSC on my work YouTube and Twitter accounts. I saw that the YouTube account has access to videos on different information on what the organisation provides. It also provides real life examples of different social service workers. I find it useful to follow the Twitter account so any updates from SSSC regarding registration or professional learning can be found there.
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I like the idea of Open Educational Resources being free and easily accessible for anyone to develop online learning, whether it’s to educate themselves or others. The fact that you could share any information from them does sound extremely handy, of course you do have to give recognition to the source that has provided it. I did find a few resources relating to early years and education of young children, including play pedagogy, child wellbeing and examples of activities in outdoor and music play. These resources may help me to look at different information on these topics that may enhance my practic. However, it did take me a couple of searches to find something of interest and I am not entirely convinced I would have found what I was looking for. An example was the Place, Pedagogy and Play book I found on OASIS. When I looked at the description, the book said it focused on children aged 10 to 11 who are outside the age range of the children I support. If you want to use what you have found for an assignment for a qualification, say a degree for example, you may not be able to reference the resource in the way the websites want you to. Every department in every university has a different way of referencing a resource.
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I believe that to learn you have to be passionate or at least somewhat interested in the topic. I believe in trying to put a positive attitude into everything.
In the self assessment, I ranked myself as high on all the characteristics made by Alan Clarke apart from my Self Confidence being ranked as average. I would say this is more looked into my written assignments and paperwork. I always try to double check before submitting and feel anxious before I do so. I know I need to appear more confident in general, both professionally and in my personal life.
I would say that all of the characteristics could also be looked into someone who uses a more traditional approach. Especially in this day and age, you still need to have some knowledge of ICT and as an early years practitioner, all of the characteristics play an important part of doing your work to a high standard.
There are many aspects of online learning I have covered from submitting paperwork to an online portfolio for my SVQ to training courses on ACC Learn. I have also looked for videos on YouTube or related podcasts that will help me to gain more knowledge in certain areas of early years, the main thing I would like to know more about is planning lessons to match the curriculum. I have learned there are great resources online if you know the right places to look and that most resources online can be added to your hours of professional learning for SSSC. Aberdeen City Council has their own ELC page on the Sharepoint where they provide links to a lot of learning.
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During the pandemic, I think everyone had to rely on Zoom, Teams or FaceTime to be able to communicate with each other. I have had many experiences with the programs now, from attending a Family group chat to attending counselling sessions on Zoom to getting a job interview through Teams. At the start of the pandemic, I worked with ASN adults where they could only communicate with their friends through video chat. The vast majority of these meetings were using Wifi but I remember at times the connection wasn’t great. I use Teams to attend staff meetings and go to training that may not be available face to face. I watched several webinars, some from courses that I studied such as Identifying and responding to additional support needs in ELC. I have found previous recordings of webinars on YouTube covering topical topics such as the Cost of Living and Mental Health in ELC, how to support families and how management should support their staff. I have been taking this learning into my practice by being empathetic and understanding of a family’s situation.
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Even though I have used emails for years, it is always handy to get a refresher on what certain parts of it mean. I was aware of what CC was, where you add people to the email who may need this information but are not the initial person the email is for. I did not know it meant Carbon Copy. Similarly for BCC, I knew it was to keep other emails private but wasn’t aware it was called Blind Carbon Copy. I organise all my emails into different folders whether it’s my personal email or my work email. For work, I have folders for my union emails, emails specifically to do with my place of work, emails from training providers etc. It also makes me happy to see an empty Inbox at the end of it. I avoid even looking at my junk/spam folder, especially at work. We tend to use links to our locked OneDrive through emails rather than download the document and attach it. In my line of work data protection is of utmost importance.