All other....
...groups tasks are done, except Sustainability's. I am having a lot of difficulties in this groups learning environment call open learning. At first, it looked really nice and professional, but when I got around to read the related material and do the tasks, I got lost many many times. In the end, this groups material done with prezi didn't show at all. So I didn't manage to finish all the tasks that were there.
I emailed to the group and after their reply I shall continue my schoolwork!
In the meantime, I can update my teaching practice part....
Sustainability
Familiarize
yourselves with this Bachelor Thesis Attitudes towards sustainable development
done in Oulu University of Applied Scinces and comment in your blog what are
your reflections about the topic as a student.
This was a
basic survey of what kind of attitudes students have in Oulu UAS towards
sustainable development. The results of this survey were that in general,
students were aware of basic sustainability methods, such as recycling metal,
paper, cardboard, glass and so on. This thesis also introduced Green IT-
method, which is important these days as technical items are not made to last.
We are in a cycle of buying new technical items and old ones are put into
waste.
I think that
sustainability in all levels should be also included into teaching. This can be
done when tasks are handed out to the students. In different tasks,
sustainability should be one part of the given task, no matter what the topic
is.
Bachelor thesis:
https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/77989/Olkinuora_Veera.pdf?sequence=1
Bachelor thesis:
https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/77989/Olkinuora_Veera.pdf?sequence=1
Answers to Sustainability course
- which has caused some frustration as the links haven't been working and the course structure is very unclear.
Module 3 – share your ideas about environmental issues.
The speech is arising many questions
about sustainable development under different topics. Which issues do you think
are most important in the field of education? Do you think that Finland or
other countries have been aware enough about these problems?
Answer:
This is a difficult topic, as we all
know that sustainability is something that everyone should take into
consideration, but in the big picture this does not happen.
In education, we can teach children how
to be creative and use old materials instead of buying new or how to recycle so
that we don’t create too much waste. By doing so in Finland, it doesn’t really
have an affect on what is happening in Rio or in other poorer countries with lot
of poverty and bad economical situations. The fact is, as Severn Suzuki said
that we waste our land for making as much profit as we can.
Next task:
Share your priority choosing from the
list and share your ideas (http://it.padlet.com/silvia_tegner/vv958rois6w3) about possible actions to be carried on at school in a Vocational
contest according to your subject
Answer:
In set design in a theatre, I would ask the students to
design and build a play where they would only use recycled materials. These can
be materials (walls, fabrics, paints, props etc) from previous plays, find
recycled furniture, build sets from material found from the recycling centre.
This can also be used in costume design- even taken further,
as you could create costumes with recycled newspapers or something similar.
This wouldn’t make waste when the production is over and the costumes are
stored or demolished.
Next task:
Task: view the 20-minute movie entitled
“The Story of Stuff” (Leonard, 2007)
- research and report current examples
of business practices that do, and do not, support principles of sustainability
and CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) in the value chain.
- identify sustainability practices
manifest in the organizations.
Answer:
This video claimed that fashion changes
because companies want people to buy new stuff as their old ones look old
fashion. Actually, it is not so, as changing fashion is connected to a lot of
other things than just companies deciding to change it. There has been a huge
sustainable development in the clothing industry within the last ten years. At
the same time, some clothing companies keep on producing garments by using
cheap labor countries in the production or polluting land when they make
materials for the garments. This is done to make more profit to the
shareholders and company owners. A good example of this is a Swedish clothing
company H&M, which intentionally manufactures garments which don’t last
more than one wash. Their materials are cheap and produced in cheap labor
countries without hardly any employee rights and low wages. The same is
happening in their garment manufacturing and more pollution is done when
garments are shipped from other side of the world into the shops and hands of
consumers – who buy them because they are cheap – throw it away and buy new
ones. H&M have made many advertising campaigns where they have stated their
sustainability. Unfortunately they are just for marketing, to clean their image
from all the crap they are doing. They have done small campaigns towards
sustainability in the company, but it is not enough if the rest 95% is
destroying everything.
There are several designers in Finland
who work against this cycle – buy cheap and throw away, buy a new one.
Unfortunately this does not help much in the long run, but at least it gives
some consumers an option to buy something else than cheap and bad quality.
These designers usually design timeless collections, which means that they also
last longer time in the design sense. Materials are carefully chosen from local
or European factories, quality is so good that you can wear them in ten years
time. Our largest fashion brand Marimekko is still using some of these same
principals. They are a large company which has to make profit, so they have to cut
their costs in manufacturing and the company has been using cheap labor
countries in their manufacture process.
Next Task:
- view the video Reuse a shoe
- reflect on closed loop production
systems and the implications for sustainable marketing practices.
- consider the strategic issues of brand
image reinforcement (e.g., Nike's use of recycled materials to create sport
surfaces) and promotion benefits realized through enhanced community relations
and new job creation.
Answer:
I thought this re-using a shoe is a
great thing, as I believe most of us just junk our old trainers when they buy a
new pair. Also I think recycling trainers is a bit odd, as usually they are so
worn out that it is not nice that someone is using them. Especially in
children’s shoes, it is very important that they don’t use someone else’s shoes
that their feet don’t grow in wrong way.
Funny thing is that there is no sign of
Nike’s re-use a shoe campaign in their website. It might have been one of those
marketing strategies, make a sustainable campaign to make more money on other
products. Anyway I think that every little helps, even small things are good
things towards sustainability and cleaner earth. However we all know that big
companies need to do a lot more than just recycle shoes.
MODULE 4:
This prezi doesn’t work:
it says “this show is over”
So I wasn't able to finish the last task.
Working life orientation, task 4:
Q1) Who (what kind of students) and what fields benefits the most of competence-based qualification system?
Q2) What are the strengths and weaknesses of competence-based qualifications?
Q3) What are the competences on your own field? Could competence-based qualification be used on your field?
Q4) What do you see are the general competences to be developed and employed in the future teaching?
Answers to group Working Life Orientation groups final task:
Q1.
Students who are working in fields which need a lot of practical experience to
learn their vocation. This also applies to adult education. There students can
benefit their previous work experience in their future studies.
Q2.
Strengths I would say is the possibility to combine previous work experience to
studies, if someone have gained their knowledge by working and not studying,
this experience will be acknowledged in the future studies. Weaknesses would be
relating to this same thing, as rules and regulations need to be very strict
when qualifications are given- students can’t graduate to a profession with too
different skill levels.
Q3. As an
example, theatre technicians are able to get UAS level degrees these days. This
studying happens part time, working at the same time. This allows technicians
to use their previous competence, learn new innovations and technical stuff,
get necessary qualifications and other certificates which are needed these days
when you are working with stage technology.
Q4. I think
the main things in this new curriculum are: teaching changes to a combination
of raising up and teaching, guiding students and being more like a mentor.
Students need to be aware of cooperation and group work rather than work as
individuals. Richness of other languages and cultures must be part of the
teaching. All of these aspects has to be taken into account when we teach in
the future.
Working on VOC themes 11-15
I have been amazed how versatile tasks all the groups have created for this final stage. Everyone's is different, even if few groups are using the same blog format, the overall presentation and task is still different.
There are many presentation techniques of which I would like to learn more. How unfortunate that now, at the end of the course, these new things comes up. Working with different groups, it just happens that some people with lot of this kind of online presentation skills happens to be in some group and they are building more creative presentations than others. I am happy still to learn Prezi, even though I would still like to know if I can change the presentation mode to a private one.
I have enjoyed working on everyones tasks so far. Today is 17th of February and I have completed tasks for two groups, half of the tasks for one and not done anything on one groups tasks. This is the sustainability group, which I assume had some difficulties on the presentation. My teaching practices observation began yesterday and I am concentrating on that at the moment, however I have time in the evenings to continue VOC themes 11-15 tasks.
Multicultural Skills in a Global World
My apologies for the delay, this task should of been done by yesterday! I finally have time to sit down and go through these tasks, not just for this group.
Topic 1. Culture
What is meant by culture?
- culture is not just about different countries, it is about many key things within a culture or a country
- it is about countries values, beliefs, attitudes and customs
- it is important to know these key things if you visit a certain country or prepare a lecture for multicultural audience. Different things have different meanings in different countries
- as an example, customs are very visible difference in many countries
- cultural differences are important to know in an academic world
Topic 2. Multicultural Challenges
First of all, I wasn't able to do the quiz in the blog... perhaps I did something wrong or just didn't get the idea how to do it! I will get back to it later.
My intercultural strengths are, that I have always been very interested of other cultures, languages, traditions and so on. I have travelled a lot and would like to travel more. Every time I travel to a new country and culture, I research the background, history and habits beforehand. Especially I am interested of the history, which usually explain a lot about the cultural traditions. Unfortunately, sometimes I fall into prejudice and luckily find myself from discovering something else.
To enhance my multicultural strengths, I quess I need to keep on studying, traveling and discovering. Being open minded is a key thing, you never know what you learn from other cultures. One important thing is that you need to respect others, as there is no right or wrong way to do things. If in another culture things are done differently, it doesn't meant it is wrong. Learning new things educates yourself.
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