#5 - Getting a LITTLE behind but reflecting on practice

From http://www.njlibraries.org/Resources/success.htm

So bloggers.  Here we are...thing 5. Where did the time go?! I love writing this blog but I am becoming increasingly aware that it's yet another professional thing that I feel guilty about not updating more (along with Twitter, Linked In etc etc etc) so I am going to try and find a regular time slot to assign to this.  I'm all about schedules and deadlines and lists, I'm one of those librarians. You know, the ones you thought only existed in 1950's films and early 20th Century novels.

I actually did all the reflective practice research and prep a couple of weeks ago but I've been really struggling to get something that doesn't sound completely idiotic down on screen. The first problem I had was actually learning what was meant by Reflective Practice.  I had a good look at the sites that the CPD23 blog recommended and really found the presentations useful (The Purpose of Reflective Practice and Journaling and Reflective Practice if you can't find them on the blog post). They helped me to establish both what the term means and how (and indeed if) I use reflective practice in my professional life. 

I think the thing that I have learned first and foremost is that I'm fairly adept at reflecting immediately how I can change a situation but not so good at analysing after the event and physically writing anything down.  I work in a school and so I am subject to a huge number of departmental, school and individual improvement plans but it's becoming more and more clear to me that I need to start writing down things that I do and actually analysing the event/project, not just waiting for the perfect time to do it. Like finding time to blog, I'm afraid the perfect moment is just never there! That way, my improvement plans and (eventual , I hope) chartership process will be a much smoother process!

For now, I am going to concentrate on writing.  I won't analyse what I'm writing too heavily and I'm going to try not to go back and delete everything just because I think I sound silly (I've gone some of the way to getting used to writing by doing this blog, it's still a rather odd experience but I'm definitely getting used to it!). The, I can concentrate on actually improving my professional practice and eventually, like the picture above, become SUPER LIBRARIAN!

Thing 4 - Current Awareness - Swings and Roundabouts

Howdy CPD23ers!

I'm very aware that its been quite a while since my last blog entry.  I would love to pretend that something super exciting/terrible had happened to me which would explain the lack of blogginess. Really, I'd love to. Unfortunately it is very much down to working lots and sleeping pretty much all of the rest of the time! Yes, my life is that boring (although I really don't hate having to spend some weeks working way harder than the others. Being a librarian in a school means coming to terms with the peaks and troughs of the school year).

Let me start with what I actually could achieve on Thing 4.  I have been on Twitter for 3 years, 2 months, 4 weeks, 1 day, 3 hours and 5 minutes according to how long have you been tweeting and it that time I have sent 2698 tweets.  In the grand scheme of things this is a tiny tiny drop in the enormous ocean of Twitter but considering I took a break from Twitter for about 2 years after I originally signed up I think I'm doing pretty well.  I use my twitter mostly to receive information and pass it along to my followers.  I follow an eclectic mix of friends, library professionals and people in the spotlight who tweet intelligent and articulated views.  I'm a huge fan of Twitter but this is because I found a way of using it that works best for me.  My usage increased a huge amount once I got an iPhone app to use it with and now I rarely, if ever, use it on my computer.  I also realised that I was never going to tweet anything that would become international news so I essentially stopped shouting into the wind and just started enjoying the fabulous network of people that I follow and find me interesting enough to follow me.

I am also a huge fan of RSS feeds.  I work with a VLE called Fronter in my school, and one of the simple yet awesome things that you can do is add RSS feeds into your Fronter homepage for others and you to see them. It means that I don't have to trawl through my favourite blogs every other day because frankly, I do not have time to do this.  I can scroll down my Fronter homepage, see what is new and decide what I'm going to read. Genius! I have also added the CPD23 feed onto my iGoogle homepage so it is there to greet me with tasks whenever I log in.  Geek perfection!

That is the good things that I managed to achieve for this task....Storify on the other hand is something that I could not get to grips with! I went to the site, I registered and unforunately I got really bored trying to make something.  To be honest, I probably didn't try quite as hard as I should have but I don't really see the point.  I'm a particularly uncreative person and making a Powerpoint is a little bit beyond me (don't even get me started on how difficult I'm finding it to learn how to use Prezi!) I promise, come the Summer holidays I shall try Storify again, but for the moment there are far more interesting and pressing things at hand!

#3 Considering my personal brand (a LONG post)

I did two searches on Google to have a look at my personal brand. One was decidedly more successful than the other.  Firstly I searched my full name, Rosemary Scallon.  Unfortunately, I had forgotten that the singer Dana who won the Eurovision Songcontest for Ireland in 1970 is also called Rosemary Scallon. She has also remained in the limelight recently for standing in the Irish President election.  Oh dear. Now I consider myself to be a fairly good mimic but I have a feeling that people who try to search for me will not mistake me for an award winning singer and politician.


Next I searched for the name that I'm know for, Rosie Scallon. Because I have a fairly unusual name I am the only person that appears in the first page of results.  This is a double edged sword. On the one hand it means that I can be sure there's very little chance I'll be mistaken for another person but it also means that the pressure to improve and maintain my brand is enormous! Luckily, there's nothing embarrassing in my Google search. My twitter account (@richiesguitar) is the first thing that comes up which is good since, even though I consider it to be a personal account, I do try to keep it relatively swearing free and library related. My Linkedin account is the next thing that appears.  I'm quite pleased about this as it does add a slight air of professionalism to my name!  I also found the pictures and information from when I ran for Student Union president in 2010. This surprised me but since it shows a willingness to get involved in worthy matters and doesn't actually show anything terribly embarrassing I'm happy for it to stay there (for the time being!). I have now become very aware of how easy it is to find out information about people if they are using multiple social networking sites. 


Working in a school, especially a secondary school, poses its own problems when it comes to visibility on the internet. Teenagers these days are profoundly skilled at using computers and the internet. Finding a member of staff on Facebook, Twitter or Google is something that they do out of curiosity but can become very damaging if something untoward is found.  However hard one tries to keep their first name from the students, eventually it will be found and a search will inevitably be conducted.  Because of this, my Facebook is on absolute lockdown to searches.  I don't have anything that would lose me my CRB check but I do absolutely have pictures that I wouldn't want seeing by 2500 students (nothing naked, just me in a Star Trek jumpsuit...children can be so cruel!)


To be honest, I'm quite pleasantly surprised about the things that appeared (and didn't appear) when I searched my name.  What is apparent is that the more I become involved in Librarianship, the more of that side of my life is visible on the internet and less of the 14 year old me who thought setting up a Myspace account was a GOOD idea.

Number 2 - Exploring the blogosphere

Ok, ok, ok....so it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. My first blog got written, I didn't get laughed at by anyone and it looks like it's actually being read by some people which is the thing that's most surprised me.

I have been reading lots of other people's blogs and absolutely loving it. There is so much interesting and exciting stuff to read out there, enough to spend your whole life engrossed in other people's thoughts and opinions.  In reading what other people have to say I have learnt a couple of things...

1. We are a LOVELY profession. Everything I've read so far is so supportive, something that warms the cockles of my heart. The internet is so saturated with hate that a bit of professional and emotional support is to be cherished nowadays.
2. We are also an hilarious set of people. So much of the stuff I read made me chuckle quietly as well as truely laugh out loud (a reason not to be reading blogs in a quiet office!).
3. We are true lovers of gin. It seems to be the drink that makes our cogs turn and I am more than happy with that. In fact, makes me really want a gin and tonic.
4. I'm already really excited about networking and getting in contact with other library bods. This is good, this makes my boring daily tasks seem like preparation for the 'proper librarianship' stuff that I get to do

 

My first foray into the blog world...

Well hello blogging world! Lovely to meet you at last!

My job title is Learning Resources Developer. (No, I don't know what that means either...). I am a school librarian in a large secondary school in North London.  Well, this is one of my roles. I am also administrator and trainer of a VLE called Fronter as well as running all IT aspects of the Learning Resources Centre. As you might imagine, this makes my job role a little diluted but also means that I rarely do the same thing two days in a row.

I have to admit that writing a blog solely about me and my professional experiences is just a little bit scary. Ok, I lied, it's VERY VERY scary. Like others in the library profession I'm not very good at self promotion and the thought that I might have to fill a blog with ME ME ME is against everything I am.  

Ah...a nice segue into why I am attempting to complete #cpd23. I really want my career to continue to be interesting and become diverse and exciting. I am very bad a networking with other librarians, even when given the chance because I live in constant fear that I'm doing the wrong thing. I understand this is a ridiculous notion but no amount of telling myself that will actually convince any part of my brain! SO, I am biting the bullet and posting this blog in the hopes that it will go at least some way to forcing me to develop my CPD. Be gentle blogosphere! 

I have to admit though, this wasn't quite as painful as I first imagined so, you never know, I just may get through this alive!