Reflective Practice. Where have I been for the last three weeks?

I have been reflecting, quite a lot, but also haven't blogged about my thoughts (though I have woken up in the night composing ideas). Now I've finally got back to it, much of the thinking has flown off into the trash bin of undigested ideas, so I'm going to just quickly summarise the key things:

 It's really important for me to capture the reflective thought; time goes by, things happen, the thinking gets abandoned at a very unprocessed stage. I know this, but it's the hardest thing for me to do. I can use all sorts of excuses - been REALLY busy at the end of term, when I always feel like a lemming racing towards a cliff (everyone else seems to be already down there on the beach). Been REALLY busy at home - completing a year's house buying/selling endless DIY etc. And so on. But the key thing is when the thinking gets harder or I'm not properly engaged, I lose interest, then I get very lazy about doing the reflection.

Thus, the social networking Things - Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin - left me feeling confused bombarded with messy looking webpages, so much STUFF. It really doesn't appeal to me much at all. I can see Twitter would be really useful in very particular circumstances - other bloggers have mentioned conferences, meetings; or I can see that it's good for breaking news. But actually I haven't a clue what most of it means - just deciphering the "code" puts me off.

Facebook I'm sure is great for whatever networking you might want to use it for. Just at the moment if I want to be in touch with my family or friends I go and see them! Or possible phone/ text/ email. But as my mobile phone is mostly buried at the bottom of my bag and might get out about once a week, you can see that I'm a person who doesn't really need to be connected all the time.

Linkedin looked very professional and I can see that would be an excellent tool for getting your profile "out there". If I was in the market for a job (and who knows with all the cuts??) then it's something I might consider. But I am still seriously protective of my personal privacy and so I'm not sure how I feel about having my CV online.

Much of my reflection on these social networking sites has been an uncomfortable, defensive feeling that I'm really not at all interested in much of it, that it feels like an intrusion, lots of "twitter", and that I must be a bit of an old fogey.

Happily I can remind myself that although I am probably quite a bit older than many of the cpd23 participants, I am not living in the dark ages, and am quite capable and competent at many techie things. Just not very sociable! And that's really the key to the whole thing. I am really more interested in silence than noise, and quite a lot of what I'm seeing on these sites is very noisy. What I need are some really good filters so that I can just get the bits I'm really interested in, and only once, rather than repeated on every interface.

So at the end of this social networking Thing, I have - completely deactivated my Twitter accounts. Not even dipped my toe in Facebook, made a mental note of Linkedin.

Finally, I have been really heartened to read other people's blogs which echo my feelings, so I don't feel like quite such a weirdo.

Now I've just got to catch up with all those other things I haven't finished thinking about.

Thing 9 Evernote

Just had a look at Evernote. I'm really interested in this in a way that I haven't been in Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook. It looks great, really easy to understand and quite exciting as an idea. Beautifully designed site, which always attracts me.  Now I've got to think how I would actually use this - it looks as if it could be addictive. For the first time, as well, I'm thinking I need a smart phone (now you know I still live in the last century). My mobile is really just a thing I use when I'm travelling, but almost never in the course of my daily life. No, I'm not a sad lonely person!
Now I'm off to check out that cute elephant (trunk).

cpd23 Thing 4 - too much information!

cpd23 Thing 4 is about keeping up with the latest information. I am experiencing some resistance to this idea, but I can see why it's important to have methods of organising information from lots of different areas. It's just that there's so much of it! And do I really need to know it all?

I managed to log in to my old Twitter account, which I've never used, but I'd obviously subscribed to various feeds as it was full of Guardian Books, cycling (I am fanatical about road racing), and one or two other things. Mindful of last week's "Thing" about branding, I thought I would try to change my Twitter name - successfully deactivating my old account, only to discover there are already numerous other people with the name I wanted to use (philgo, like this blog). So now I don't have a Twitter account at all until I can think of a new identity.

At this point I ground to a halt and applied myself to the tedium of the annual stock check, which I'm determined to finish this week. I will come back to Twitter, Rss feeds etc, and am impressed by other people's efforts.

Alan Gibbons, Campaign for the Library, Advocacy for libraries

Yesterday I was at a termly training day organised by our brilliant and very hardworking Schools Library Service (Suffolk)for high school librarians.
http://www.suffolk.gov.uk/EducationAndLearning/Schools/SchoolsLibraryService/

The main event was an inspiring morning session by Alan Gibbons, children's author and instigator of the Campaign for the Book, which started out with the threat to Doncaster libraries and turned, via Wirral library campaign, into a national campaign in many authorities as county councils target local libraries in the current round of stringent budget cuts. Here in Suffolk there has been a huge public outcry against the plan to "divest" many services to local interest groups or private providers. 
I imagine Alan Gibbons has given this presentation (refreshingly without notes or AV displays) probably hundreds of times, and I was impressed by the vigour and passion of his argument and his ongoing commitment to the fight to keep public and school libraries, and school library services.
Alan's blog is updated daily with links to news and articles about library issues in UK.
http://alangibbons.net/

Later on today I came across this article from the Evening Standard about research linking book ownership to  reading success ( a bit of  a no-brainer, of course).
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23956834-prisons-must-by-law-have-libraries---so-why-dont-schools.do


The afternoon session was a workshop about advocacy. Two school libraries are under threat or have already closed in our local area, so it's a crucial time for evidence based impact assessment to fight our corner. I'm planning to produce some audio/ video clips of teachers and pupils talking about what the school library means to them and get comments about specific activities which couldn't have been done, or would have been difficult without the school library resources, including the librarian - me! 


Finally our SLS Advisory Librarians share their reading experiences and school events at:
http://twitter.com/#!/LizandJacky

cpd23, Thing 3, update on personal brand

I have been mulling over my personal brand all week. I've checked my online presence and also asked a friend who works in a different professional field to comment on the impression conveyed by my blog. And I've read lots of other people's thoughts about branding. So I've done my homework!
I've decided for the present to leave my identity as it is. I know future "Things" include Twitter, Facebook etc and I'm going to continue to think about my brand so that I can get a consistent identity across those different applications. I'm pretty sure I don't want to use a photo, but I can see an image/ logo is useful for quick identification, so I might look at that.
I don't feel as if I've ducked this one and it's been very useful to think about personal and corporate branding.
Meanwhile other things have been going on. . .

cpd23 Personal Brand, finding my way around blogging,

Just an update of my progress in the world of blogging:
I can now create links in my blog and upload pictures.
I have worked out how to follow a blog.
I looked at lots of blogs with advice about personal branding. 
Still mulling over my thoughts about personal branding. I have misgivings about using my real name online and a picture also feels a bit risky. But I may change how I feel. The library community feels very supportive and friendly, but I'm really not very happy about being too revealed just yet. Might be something to do with my age/ era. 
Today I've been asked to help collate/ edit information for our new school prospectus for 2012, a job I did two years ago. As we will be transforming into a new school (see my blog...) with a new name, uniform, logo, school site, this is also a branding exercise.

Social Media - Lost in the Labyrinth

I'm really pleased that I've managed to get my blog started, but I'm still finding my way around the "behind the scenes" - dashboard, profile, followers, etc.
In particular, I haven't quite worked out how to follow other people's blogs (though I am reading them) and I need to learn about creating links in my blog. It's just a matter of getting round to it.
This is fairly typical of my experience with technology - get to grips with the basics (or sometimes not even that) but grind to a halt when the technical things/ navigation start to get challenging. I haven't given up, though, and now I've jotted down these thoughts, with luck I will actually do something about them.
I think that's the great thing about the blog - taking time to capture the thought, which then allows the next bit of thinking.
Thanks to the people who've give me feedback - I will try to do personal replies, when I've worked out how.