Why am I doing CPD23 Things again, for the third time in as many years? I did the CPD23 Things Oxford project in 2010, CPD23 Things in 2011, and again now. Well, it's all about continuing professional development, and about reminding myself to blog and write, reflect, learn new things, and take time to read others' blogs to learn from them. As I've been working on my CILIP Chartership portfolio in an on-again-off-again manner, due to recent personal circumstances, I've forgotten to reflect on my working days and figure out how to make necessary improvements to my 1-1 teaching skills, my literature searching skills, or management-related experiences. We'll be refurbishing our library over the summer and may have fewer readers around, so this is another good use of my time. How can I be a better person at work? For all these reasons, and
probably others that I've forgotten for the moment, I'm participating in
this round of CPD23 Things for 2012.
Blogs I'm enjoying at the moment:
Life in the Library Lane http://michaelhealthlibrarian.wordpress.com/
Libraries, the universe and everything http://el399.wordpress.com/
And many, many more... which I keep track of via Google Reader!
This is a blog written by a medical librarian used to discuss library issues, 23 Things projects, and cats.
Tuesday, 22 May 2012
Monday, 21 May 2012
Useful article
Sometimes, it's a good idea to find an article to read, critically appraise, think with. I've found that today with this article:
Marcus, M.A., et al. (2012) 'What are young adults saying about mental health? An analysis of internet blogs', Journal of Medical Internet Research, 14(1). Available at: http://www.jmir.org/2012/1/e17/ (Accessed 21/05/12).
These researchers studied 8 blogs of young people (aged 18-25) who wrote about their depression using blogging technology, as writing is therapeutic, and if you write about anything online which has the comments functionality, you can also develop "social connections". The authors argue that "writing provided a vehicle for the bloggers to reflect on their experiences in written form and gain understanding and mastery over their problems".
As I start to think seriously about writing my evaluative statement for my Chartership portfolio, I've been catching up with the #chartership Twitter conversations (fortnightly on Thursdays, from 6.30pm++), and reading about many chartership candidates who blog and tweet constantly as a way of getting themselves, forcing themselves, to reflect on their experiences at work or other CPD events, and as a way of communicating with others. "I'm not alone in this chartership experience/horror, there are others out there". It makes sense that this is also true for many different people going through various experiences, whether it's Chartership, or depressive episodes, or whatever!
It's good for me to read about grounded theory and how people are analysing blogs to extract different kinds of data, as it's food for thought and helps me to think beyond what I do day-to-day for people in my dayjob, and allows me to think about things I used to do in the past, namely work on issues to do with mental health, gender, discrimination, psychiatric medication, online communication...
But it is also serving as a way of procrastinating, of putting off working on my STATEMENT, so I will now get on with drafting that 1000 word marvel, and use my time on the help desk evening duty more wisely!
Marcus, M.A., et al. (2012) 'What are young adults saying about mental health? An analysis of internet blogs', Journal of Medical Internet Research, 14(1). Available at: http://www.jmir.org/2012/1/e17/ (Accessed 21/05/12).
These researchers studied 8 blogs of young people (aged 18-25) who wrote about their depression using blogging technology, as writing is therapeutic, and if you write about anything online which has the comments functionality, you can also develop "social connections". The authors argue that "writing provided a vehicle for the bloggers to reflect on their experiences in written form and gain understanding and mastery over their problems".
As I start to think seriously about writing my evaluative statement for my Chartership portfolio, I've been catching up with the #chartership Twitter conversations (fortnightly on Thursdays, from 6.30pm++), and reading about many chartership candidates who blog and tweet constantly as a way of getting themselves, forcing themselves, to reflect on their experiences at work or other CPD events, and as a way of communicating with others. "I'm not alone in this chartership experience/horror, there are others out there". It makes sense that this is also true for many different people going through various experiences, whether it's Chartership, or depressive episodes, or whatever!
It's good for me to read about grounded theory and how people are analysing blogs to extract different kinds of data, as it's food for thought and helps me to think beyond what I do day-to-day for people in my dayjob, and allows me to think about things I used to do in the past, namely work on issues to do with mental health, gender, discrimination, psychiatric medication, online communication...
But it is also serving as a way of procrastinating, of putting off working on my STATEMENT, so I will now get on with drafting that 1000 word marvel, and use my time on the help desk evening duty more wisely!
Friday, 11 May 2012
Been quiet
Gosh, I have been quiet recently. This will change as I, once again, vow to get back to anonymising and annotating my Evidence before writing the 1000 words on my portfolio so that I can charter soon...
Not been having many amazing thoughts about librarianship generally lately. Nor about my own CPD. I've been preoccupied with other things. Space changes at the Knowledge Centre, searches for various departments, and trying to write an article for Libraries for Nursing.
I need to reflect on my career to date, as I write an application for a bursary to attend a conference in June. I'll report back on this reflection soon!
Not been having many amazing thoughts about librarianship generally lately. Nor about my own CPD. I've been preoccupied with other things. Space changes at the Knowledge Centre, searches for various departments, and trying to write an article for Libraries for Nursing.
I need to reflect on my career to date, as I write an application for a bursary to attend a conference in June. I'll report back on this reflection soon!
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