Task 3c: Sources of Information

Searching, and reusing information can also be thought of as a networking activity. I use various different sources to obtain information for various different parts of my professional practice. Each source can inform me differently for different aspects of my career and some sources can be more useful in certain areas of my career than others. I seem to gather my sources of information in my diary, which I would be lost without. It has all aspects of my life in there, whether that is performing, teaching, working on my degree course or my shifts for my part time job! When discussing the collating of information in skype groups, others have opened my eyes as to how to do this by suggesting things like keeping information on a voice recorder app, so it is much quicker to record and listen to than to write and read the info. However, having established I learn well from reading, taking notes and re-writing, I think I may stick to my traditional style of organising my information even if it does take a little longer! Having looked over my sources of information I feel I mainly rely on the web 2.0, and this is something I think is incredibly useful but also something I would like to move away from. I would like to expand my sources to gain a more rounded and more varied pool of information so I can make more informed decisions on issues within my practice. My main 5 sources of information are:

1. Facebook/ Instagram/ Twitter
Unfortunately I believe that these are my biggest source of information regarding my professional practice in the performing side of my career. I follow many pages and I am involved in many groups within these social media pages that inform me of upcoming auditions, classes or events that I may attend that will improve my practice and may open up opportunities for me. I can 'follow' different companies and organisations, whether that be casting companies, or choreographers and all of which post updates and keep me up to date with what is going on in the industry.

2. The Stage and Spotlight
I also have an account with The Stage and I am a paying member of Spotlight. Both of these send me emails of any updates of any auditions. These are vital sources of information for any dancer wanting to still perform as most auditions are posted on these websites. Spotlight also knows my height, my 'look' and my playing age so can intelligently filter out any roles that I would not be suitable for. Without being members of these two sites, I would miss out on so many potential job opportunities.

3. YouTube
YouTube is a vital source for me when it comes to teaching. Reflective observation is one of the best ways I learn. When watching others I can make decisions on what I like, what I don't like and that will help me to create something even more special. I use YouTube to watch others and get inspiration for choreography that I will teach, but I also like to show my students that original stimulus I had when creating the piece so I often show them the YouTube clip to show them what inspired me. Whilst watching others work and feeling inspired is great, there is a fine line between this and copyright issues. It is my responsibility to ensure all my work is my own and not copied from someone else, therefore I think it's best to watch things, let them settle and then start to choreograph so therefore you are not copying anything in particular, just using an idea of style to stimulate your own creative mind.

4. Face to Face conversations
When it comes to teaching I have found face to face conversations with other practitioners invaluable. Many of my friends and family are teachers and I have learnt so much and gathered so much information from them by just listening to their opinions and thoughts on various topics to do with teaching. I think face to face conversations are one of the best sources of information, as you can gauge as a human what may have made them come to that opinion or conclusion. If they have had a 'rough' day, then their thoughts on a certain topic may be biased one way or another, so it may not be an accurate representation of this or a valuable source of information. This is something I would like to spend more time doing.

5. Books
Literature is a new source of information for me. I have never really enjoyed reading books, but since having embarked on this course, I source most of my information through books I have bought by relevant practitioners within my field of work. I sourced these books from the key reading list provided to me by the course leader, however having started to read them I have gained so much knowledge about the subjects I am studying at that time and it is nice to read various different intellectual opinions on certain topics. This also creates a copyright issue in the sense that everything that is written by someone else must be referenced correctly, or else this could be classed as plagiarism.

Having written this blog I reflected that I would like to improve on how much I use talking to people face to face and also improve my understanding of literature to move away from my 'normal' sources of information.