A Critical Reflection on my Developing Professional Practise

Being able to establish yourself as a professional in the 21st century has been quickly adapting and for ever changing, due to the mainstream introduction of the internet(1) http://www.usatoday.com/tech/top25-internet.htm many business and social opportunities have arisen from this mass media/information service and therefore change how we communicate. In terms of professional communication technology the conventional “phone call” has now been replaced with the email in terms of how it is used and how often it is used. Due to its fast and effective way of contacting people and its ease of media sharing, referring to performance and my professional practise it has been use to establish meetings, auditions, script work and workshop details these are key to keep up to date with and having a instant service which can communicate these aspects within my practise enables quick and easy changes and maintains a guaranteed connection to all involved, however compared to other services the email has been floored by its lack of instant communication having to wait for a reply and lack of speech which is very personal and which people prefer instead of writing. 

This is where ,video calling, ‘Skype’(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype#Features has taken a big role in the professional world, being used in at homes, classrooms, business meeting and most importantly as a professional means of communication, its uses are endless and there fore it is constantly evolving. In regards to my professional practise finding new way to communicate face to face via different means is key to developing inclusive practice but could ‘Skype’ be an effective way to create a dance sequence with someone abroad or work with a director from another country and could it have the same impact on the piece when perofrmed?  Establishing your professional practise is one of the key elements of becoming a professional, once having established this certain practises and boundaries are set but being able to advance yourself and your practise you must apply reflective practise where you constantly self evaluate everything you do to fine tune it to its best possible setting much like a machine but this process does not happen once and it is then set in stone due to the constant change of work within the professional practise you are constantly evolving and self evaluating to widen your knowledge of your practise. In terms of my professional practise as an Inclusive practitioner/performer reflective practise is key to how I work and perform due to the style and essence of work being created at Chickenshed theatre (3) http://www.chickenshed.org.uk/155/vision/what-we-do.html Networking is key in the professional industry, it allows people to share information and gain access to information/people which might not have been available to them or to create new ideas when combine with another person or set of people.

Networking used to be solely a personal face to face meeting with a range of people, now we have services which open up the networking interface to the whole world the such as blogger, youtube, flickr and skype (4) http://adrian-harper.blogspot.com/ these allow  people with all professional interests to widen there pallet of creation and information by being able to acess written text, songs, pictures, having online meeting where ever you are. These new services are a blessing within my professional practise due to its on going development and changing definition by using blogger, you tube etc. I can learn what other think about inclusion and other views on if it works and also give people a new way of thinking on the practise, these elements are key to my reflective practise and development as a professional inclusive practitioner .

In conclusion I believe the use of all of these social networking and media sharing online services has opened my mind to new ideas and broadened my horizons to online sharing, written, visual or sound with all of the information which is present and how the personal opinions and views, which is accessible through these service, can be utilised to develop and re-enforce my profession practices as an inclusive practitioner, this bring up a vast amount of questions (5) http://adrian-harper.blogspot.com/ which I will explore throughout the course furthermore this drives me on to see how far I can push the boundaries and see how I can utilise these services in the best way possible and even find new or unconventional ways in which to use them and share ideas, thoughts and opinions within my professional practise and the online world.

Youtube.............A new world

I regularly use youtube and look at videos but having an account is a new experience uploading video of my own is very exposing with all the comments, likes, views, subscribers.
As I mentioned in my flickr blog youtube was very easy to set up having a stereotype of the process I  dreaded it but was corrected. 
 Youtube is a great way to access allot of information especially focused on social views and issues. Inclusive practise is still a very impact topic and many people have strong views on  the topic but I believe having a video outlet  I can upload video showing the benefits of my professional practise and also receive peoples views on it allowing me personally and my practise to adapt.

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheAdrianHarper?feature=mhum

Check it out! Comment, Rate, Subscribe.  :)

Questions…….Hmmmmmmmm:

Having been working with a wide range of people over this term in various situations on a professional level, questions and theories arise which get me thinking on how my professional practise can develop and affect others. Studying inclusive theatre and practise from BTEC/A Level all the way through to Degree Level I have been able to see and experience the advantages and benefits of the practise. Would it be more beneficial to children/community/education to introduce inclusion at a younger age for example secondary school or will it break down independent streak which develops at that age?

More Questions to come.

Flickr!!

Having never used Flickr before i though it was going to need a module for it self having to creat an account giving details, emails and uploading pictures one by one for hours but i realised it was very easy having a yahoo account it was already linked, pictures and video uploading was very simple and time effective.
The photos/videos are of some of the work I have done at Chickenshed, for the Daddycool Project and some personal achievement I would like to share.

Flickr is very easy to get going and will be a frequent user now, as being able to describe my professional practise and for others to understand the concept can be difficult but having a visual aid such as pictures and video on flickr helps the process.

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/adrian-harper