23 Things for Professional Development: Practical and useful professional development course
I've really enjoyed following this course, ok at times I may have fell behind a little but I got here in the end and as someone said its not the destination its the journey that matters. On my journey I feel I have learned a lot about practical tools but also about myself. It's also given me a fresh motivation to complete my chartership portfolio and look into the areas I want to develop more.
It's helped my plan out my PPDP for chartership and will help me to develop that over the coming years. An area I would like to work on more is my presenting/public speaking skills. Also my communication skills such as writing for the web (thinking blog posts here!) and communicating across groups.
I've started a separate blog to record my CPD and experiences. I've found this course so useful I'm hoping to keep it up! You can view the blog here: http://sharonscpd.blogspot.com/
Wednesday 2 November 2011
Thing 22: Volunteering to get experience
I've never undertaken volunteer work in the profession as I've always been lucky enough to get paid work in some capacity, but it is something I would consider to gain more experience.
I think volunteering is a good thing as it gives someone a chance to try out aspects of the professiona before jumping in. A lot pf people have different, often stereotype, views of what a librarian is or does and this gives them a chance to see what really goes on. Not only that I would say that volunteers would be comitted to the work they want to do so we have a real opportunity to show what they can achieve in an information profession. Their are so many different aspects to librarianship/information work and volunteering could be a great way to explore what aspects you prefer to work on.
I think volunteering is a good thing as it gives someone a chance to try out aspects of the professiona before jumping in. A lot pf people have different, often stereotype, views of what a librarian is or does and this gives them a chance to see what really goes on. Not only that I would say that volunteers would be comitted to the work they want to do so we have a real opportunity to show what they can achieve in an information profession. Their are so many different aspects to librarianship/information work and volunteering could be a great way to explore what aspects you prefer to work on.
Thing 21: Promoting yourself in job applications and at interview
This is something I've been meaning to do for a while, working with a close team I've often thought about what strengths I can bring (apart from my sense of humour and the ability to find cake at short notice) to the team. So in terms of my task at work my interests and activities are:
- Organsing things - from emails to VLEs, reports to my desk drawer, I love organsing stuff!
- Networking - Meeting new people, introducing myself or the service, getting to know other professionals.
- Training events - Again more the organisational side, finding the right topic and promoting it rather than hosting them.
- Marketing and promotion - Either on the web or in person, creating materials
- Creating resources - Be it links in Delicious or a screen cast.
- Attending events - Conferences, training, meetings I think it comes back to my love of networking
- Visting libraries - I love to see different libraries and innovative services within them
- Working groups - I enjoy working on projects with a defined purpose.
- Current awareness - Keeping up to date with developments in the profession.
- Blogging/Tweeting - Passing on my knowledge in the hopes it helps someone else.
- Trying out new technology - Again so I can pass on my knowledge to help someone else.
In terms of life in general:
- Studying / learning something new - Thinking back I've studied "something" every year since I left high school!
- Knitting - Relaxing but again working on a project with a defined purpose.
- Swimming
- Computer games - PS3 especially, I enjoy all sorts of games
- Watching telly - I am slightly addicted to the Discovery Channel.
- Reading - I'm really enjoying reading from my new Kindle but still visit my local library :-)
Stuff I dislike:
- Presentations/public speaking
- Waffle
- People who think all librarians just say "Shhhh"
I get deep satisfaction from completing a post on here each time because I'm working towards something. Recently creating a screen cast to support a colleagues online training session was fantastic. Not only was I able to pass on my knowledge and create something but hopefully help out several people at the same time, well worth it. At the time I enjoyed it but didn't realise what an achievement it is and feel very proud of what I have created.
Looking at the lists above I would say my strengths are:
- Organisational skills
- Networking
- Creative thinking/problem solving
- Attention to detail
- Just try it attitude
My big interview tip is that not all your experience has to come from work. For example in a previous job role I was asked to organise events. At work I hadn't had much experience of that but I did help plan events as part of my student union so used my experiences from that.
Thing 18: Jing / screen capture / podcasts (making and following them)
I must admit I thought I would play around making screen casts to see what it was all about, and maybe even look at ways of incorporating them into my work so left this 'Thing' on the back burner. I then attended a web 2.0 training course for librarians from WISE Kids and part of our homework was to take what we had learnt and apply it to our working life, and yet again I thought of screen casts. Luckily for me my colleague Paul Richardson is holding a webinar this month and after some discussion he thought it would be useful for me to create some screen casts to support the session, so it all came together in the end.
I signed up for and used Jing to make my screen casts, I'm aware there are a lot out there but I decided on Jing under recommendation from JISC Digital Media and they know their stuff! It seemed like a quite simple process installing it and I like the sun icon at the top of my screen. I began with a few practice runs to get used to Jing but it didn't take long as its quite intuitive. I particuraly liked the 3, 2, 1 count down to the recording starting, it gave me a bit of time to get prepared and made me feel professional. Any here's what I have created: How_to_search_for_RSS_feeds_in_Google_Reader
The only thing I don't like is that although I can save the files to my computer they're not in a format I can watch, that might need some exploring, so for the moment I view them via the Jing screen cast sharing website called screencast.com.
Personally I watch quite a few screen casts (or captures) to learn how to do things, I find it easier than working through a page of instructions. This got me thinking about libraries and the amount of 'How to' sheets I see that could easily translate into screen casts.
I also follow quite a few podcasts, my work takes me on long journeys and I find podcasts a great way to catch up with whats happening in the world.
All in all I think screen captures/casts/whatevers and podcasts could make explaining library features more accessible and enjoyable. I hope to create more and maybe incorporating a screen cast into a video blog at some point.
I signed up for and used Jing to make my screen casts, I'm aware there are a lot out there but I decided on Jing under recommendation from JISC Digital Media and they know their stuff! It seemed like a quite simple process installing it and I like the sun icon at the top of my screen. I began with a few practice runs to get used to Jing but it didn't take long as its quite intuitive. I particuraly liked the 3, 2, 1 count down to the recording starting, it gave me a bit of time to get prepared and made me feel professional. Any here's what I have created: How_to_search_for_RSS_feeds_in_Google_Reader
The only thing I don't like is that although I can save the files to my computer they're not in a format I can watch, that might need some exploring, so for the moment I view them via the Jing screen cast sharing website called screencast.com.
Personally I watch quite a few screen casts (or captures) to learn how to do things, I find it easier than working through a page of instructions. This got me thinking about libraries and the amount of 'How to' sheets I see that could easily translate into screen casts.
I also follow quite a few podcasts, my work takes me on long journeys and I find podcasts a great way to catch up with whats happening in the world.
All in all I think screen captures/casts/whatevers and podcasts could make explaining library features more accessible and enjoyable. I hope to create more and maybe incorporating a screen cast into a video blog at some point.
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