This is it, I have just about finished the Rudai23 course and this is the final reflection on what I’ve done and learnt.
Description.
The
last three exercises have been about:
Thing 19 - Podcasting
Thing 20 - Advocacy in the Library
Thing 21 - Library Professional Groups.
Feelings
& Evaluation.
I
loved Thing 19, podcasting and will definitely continue to do them. It would be
fun to do some podcasts with other people, discussing movies or books. It is
probably a bit boring for the listener to listen to just one voice. Audacity is an awesome tool and to think it's free is crazy. I managed to create a fairly good sounding podcast without even a microphone or special equipment. I just used the standard mic on my laptop and played the music on my phone (holding it close to the laptop). After watching a few youtube how-to videos I was flying with the whole editing process. I used Soundcloud without any problems to host and share my podcast.
Thing 20 was a struggle and took me a few days to get through it. There was a vast
amount of information to assimilate and understand about Library advocacy. I had to read the lesson on my iPad as my work computer kept blocking the many images that were included. I
have never been in a position to advocate for the Library, I would feel a bit more comfortable doing it now, but I don't think I will be in a position as a library assistant to do it anyway. On a further reading of
my Thing 20, I realised that by exercise 7 (of 9) my blog had morphed into an
exercise of how the library could better provide a service to the LGBT community;
although by virtue of this I could then advocate to the LGBT community the
benefits of the Library. This of course was not intentional, just due to the
fact I have advocated for the LGBT community for 15 years.
Thing 21 was quite easy and interesting. This was a Thing of doing rather than
learning. Once I had followed three professional groups I started learning more
about them as I was seeing content from them on my Facebook and Twitter feed.
Analysis
& Conclusion.
Thing
19. My podcast has been listened to 9 times and I was delighted to be able to
give some tips to another Rudai23 student (via tweeting). The blogpost has been
viewed 46 times. As already said I really enjoyed podcasting and am
looking for some people to talk about movie and book reviews.
Thing 20 was brilliant, a struggle but really enjoyable. My blogpost was viewed an
amazing 123 times so was quite popular. I think the content (if I do say so
myself) was also fairly good, although did go in the wrong direction towards
the end. This redirection however has given me some ideas for work this year. I
hope I’m not marked down for this redirection! The only negative I would have is that there was a vast amount of information in this Thing so maybe next time it could be split into two exercises.
In
regards to analysis of Thing 21, a particular part of this exercise was to see
what kind of response I would get. The LAI liked my post on Facebook but the
other 2 had no reply. On Twitter, the ALA liked my Tweet and Rudai23 liked my
Tweet on the LAI page. I made 2 new friends on Facebook. I hope to join the LAI
shortly and it is great to keep in contact with other groups and professional
bodies to keep up-to-date with what’s happening, as, to paraphrase “What happens to one will happen to us all”.
This blogpost was viewed 35 times.
Action
Plan.
I
really enjoyed doing the whole course, obviously there is not much action
needed for the rest of the course but I will continue blogging and keep in
contact with other library professionals and bodies. I really enjoyed this style
of CPD, it’s the first I’ve done in work for many years and am currently
looking to see what I will do next.
I probably had a different approach to most other participants; I’ve been doing the course
in conjunction with blogging in general and it actually helped to jump around, doing different things and approaching them in different ways. Variety is the spice of life. The course
has been a great learning process, not only learning how to blog, but also how to
get your information across in many different ways & formats and to
consider your online presence. Ultimately, it’s learning by doing, which for me
anyway, is the best kind of learning. I’ve done 73 blogposts and have had over
12,300 page views since 12th September 2017 so am over the moon with
those stats.
An act of general reflection for me (outside of the course) was to evaluate how my blog was doing, what was working, what wasn't, what actions to take and to set myself goals. I actual wrote two blogs about doing just that:
So not only are the exercises of reflection good for the course, they were also good for my blog.
Anyway, toodles
for now
John
The Captain Ryan.
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