Hi All
Happy New Year! Good to hear that many of you have assignment writing as part of your new years resolution. If you cant get to the Thursday sessions do send your draft writings through and dont forget you can post on the blog section of this site. A number of people are beginning to set up their own websites or want to use http://www.livinglearning.org.uk. If it that is what you want to do that is great, just post a note and link on the blog to tell people where to access your writings.

I urge you to take the leap and share your early thinking in the form of writings - it will both help you to clarify your thoughts in the process, allow others to help you and you can help others and yourself by learning how to respond helpfully to other people's work in progress. I know it takes time and confidence but I think you will find it pays dividends. For those working directly with children and young people this might be an opportunity to learn through experience a cooperative learning process that you might want to introduce them to.

At the last Thursday meeting a number of people said they would find it very helpful to have some target dates. It was agreed that people working on their modules would share their writings - whatever stage they were up to - by 31st Jan on the site and/or 2nd Feb at the evening group. Some may be working on the 'writerly' phase and think what they have is total confusion and want help to find their way through the fog. Others will be working on the 'readerly' phase and want help to know how they might improve the clarity of their communication and meet the criteria of the university to successfully submit the module.

Our diversity is a strength of this project - Living Values Improving Practice Cooperatively - but we can only learn cooperatively if we each develop trust in one another and make the effort to contribute our own work and responses to other peoples. To walk my own talk - my draft thesis can be accessed from http://www.spanglefish.com/mariessite/draftthesis.asp

Any problems posting let me know. If you havent learned to post your writings yet send them to me and I will post for you. Responding to others is easy - just type and hit 'send message'.