#thing7

This video I found on Youtube would be a good tool when teaching health education and more specifically on the topic of mental health. In this video, it illustrates some issues that students will face that can cause them to feel sad or anxious. It uses the children's film ‘Inside Out’ which picks up on some of the student’s interests, which I think is a great tool when trying to find something to relate to the students. It explains how people can feel in certain situations and what the processes might be for them to work through it. 

Finding resources used to be the bane of my life. University was particular insistent on finding extra reading through credible platforms. After a whole semester of this approach, I have to admit, it is not as boring and unrewarding as one would perhaps imagine. In fact, it is indeed incredibly useful. Not only can I be sure the evidence is reliable but the evidence is also detailed so I can actually find what I am looking for. 

I signed up for an Open Athens account to access the SSKS (Social Services Knowledge Scotland). The first test was finding information and evidence for child-centred education (as this was something I have really struggled to source online). I found research on a school in Cambodia that has engaged in child-centred approaches. The article weighs out the pros and cons and has helped me develop a clearer view of the approach and its drawbacks.

The SSKS website is a lot more straight-forward than some I have encountered through university. The search bar is very easy to find and the filters are very available. The search settings are very good at narrowing down the information and I found it a rather pleasant experience as I found most of what I was looking for. However, if you type “UK” after a query, it is not as good at differentiating the articles so only UK articles come up. This could of course be a feature on the website that I may have missed.

I also have used the Google advanced search previously. I used it mainly for college to narrow down my results so only the most recent would pop up. I mainly use it for finding a specific time the articles were published but I had never noticed that you could change your preferences of language or type of article. 

This has been a very worthwhile activity and the resource, I would highly recommend. 

Find resources on the internet is easy, just type a word into Google and a myriad of information is at your fingertips to sift through.  I have used Google many times and have come to realise that too much is not necessarily a good thing.  Using advanced search, however, enables you to filter your results.  I think the best way to learn this process is to play with it, and of course it becomes easier the more you do it.

I already had an SSKS and Open Athens account created so this made “Thing 7″ relatively straightforward.  I have also completed a degree online and used many libraries and searches to find information.  I think I have said this in a previous blog, the difficulty for me is staying focused as I tend to find things of interest and go of on a million different tangents.

For this exercise I searched for aggression in childrens residential and came up with Client Violence Against Youth Care Workers: Findings of an Exploratory Study of Workforce Issues in Residential Treatment.  I chose to read this one as it was up to date and seemed relevant.  Of course anything in this field is relevant as I work in Childrens Residential and all learning is good in my book.  On Google I did a different search regarding relationships in childrens residential and this was one of the first pages I found Attachment Theory and Residential Treatment:A Study of Staff -Client Relationships.  Again this is totally relevant to my field of work.  This was a great read and I found it really easy to relate with what was being said. 

I enjoyed recording using Sound Cloud. I used to feel nervous about my voice in the past but I am used to it now. Audios tools such as Sound Cloud, Voice Thread and Adobe Voice could be used effectively for showcasing library books; reading exceprts of featured books of the month for students to try out or for promoting thoughts and feedback of customers.

On a website it could also provide a library guide or additional help for troubleshooting with web tools.

(I am a school librarian and I recently experimented with the use of Adobe Voice for review recording in a small book club. Students were nervous about it but now that I have done it myself I wonder if we had written a script beforehand as I did if it would have been better?)

An added benefit to this exercise is practice in public speaking.  I have the awful habit of rushing my words but practising for recording forced me to speak in a clear, audible manner. I have recently become interested in poetry so I did my podcast on a form called the villanelle.  I read a villanelle that I wrote and it really helped me to hear the sounds in my poem when it was read aloud.