Introductory Workshop

The course proper started yesterday. I had an introductory workshop with others in my region where we met our tutors, each other and went through some stuff.

Largely it was repeating stuff that had already been made available to us in our module guides and on various places on the website, but there were people there for whom it was new so there was value in it.

There was a lot of value in the chance to meet the tutors and other people doing this module. They weren't all there because the dates had only gone up on Wednesday and not everyone would have been checking the site that regularly. There was a slight hiccup with the tutor having to move the date for the first tutorial to a weekend when I am away, but that was resolved by switching groups for that one tutorial.

We did some group work on the foundations of social work practice, relevant because this is the practice based module and it was enlightening to look at what we'd already got in terms of knowledge, skills, values and ethics and processes.

Today I spent some time on the first block looking at identity and individuals, which was interesting. I was supposed to be doing some of the ICT exercises, but having looked at them I really need to print them out (which I was trying to avoid doing to save paper) so I shall have to do that tomorrow at work.

At the moment I still feel excited and confident. I think that the module starting with identity has boosted my confidence because I have been a part of delivering training around identity to many groups of potential foster carers in my current job role. I suspect some of that confidence will take a knocking when I get into the sections where the content is less familiar, but hopefully by then I will have more connections with others on the course etc.

The ICT stuff looks dull as ditch water though. I wish there was around round the constant repetition of basic skills as seemingly the only way to get everyone at the same skills level. I wish there was an IT test that could be taken at the beginning that would allow those of us who are IT literate to skip those modules. I am okay with going through the basics in terms of social work, I can see the value in that, but IT and ICT feels so peripheral in terms of knowledge, as important as it is to the job role.

Ah well.

Next to work on
- ICT stuff needs to be printed off and gone through *yawn*
- Continue with the work books, still on identity, but getting more complicated.

Beginning...

Tomorrow I start the Open University social work degree. In three years time, all being well, I'll be a social worker. Currently I work full time for my local authority's fostering service recruiting foster carers and I also work at weekends for a local charity that works with vulnerable teenagers.

I figured the next three years was going to be pretty interesting and I'm intending to use this blog as a way of chronicalling that.