Thing 17

I have jumped the gun somewhat on this one. Although I knew it was coming up in the things, I wanted to do something different for induction. I felt like a change from boring myself (never mind the audience) with Powerpoint so having read the Wikiman's blog post http://thewikiman.org/blog/?p=1690&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thewikiman+%28thewikiman.org%29 a while back, I had a go. I must admit that it is a first attempt and done under time pressure so there is a lot that could be better but for a first attempt to present to an audience who has probably never seen Prezi before it is OK. The difficulty has been that as our inductions are normally delivered in Powerpoint in a linear fashion it was hard to get out of that mindset and be more creative. This is especially challenging for me a person who comes out as a definite "square" when using Myers-Briggs personality types. My colleagues were impressed however and thought that despite its rough edges it looked "arty" so I ran with it. I must admit I didn't fully understand what I was doing in terms of zooming in and out and sometimes things just happened randomly! Given more thinking and planning time though I think I will definitely be using it again.

You can see my first effort here.. http://prezi.com/faxzu8lasgii/lrc-induction/

Although I had heard the name Slideshare before I must admit I had never investigated it or realised what it was - I'm sure it would have and will be useful to me had I known and it will be another thing to add to my growing armoury of useful tools.

Thing 19

I have been really enjoying working my way through the 23 things although it has been quite difficult to keep up, with new things coming thick and fast.

There are definitely some things which are new to me which I will be using in the future. I am working on my social media sites and intend to further use and develop my knowledge and use of Twitter and Linkedin. ( A new phone I keep dropping hints about for Christmas will be of help here).

As I stated in my last post I am particularly pleased to discover free screencasting software and can see a lot of possibilities for using that in our LRC. I think that over time I will also come to appreciate other productivity tools included in the things such as dropbox and evernote but I haven't had much time to spend exploring these yet.

Keeping these posts brief at the moment as we are mid LRC inductions at the moment and so very busy!

Thing 18

Screencasts and podcasts are definitely "things" I/ my colleagues who I have impressed with a demonstration, will be making use of. They are ideal for putting demonstrations on Moodle our Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) eg of how to search the catalogue, how to find and use e-books and how to print all of which are common queries in the college library. I was going to attach a very basic quick effort done in a couple of minutes but uploading to the internet seems slightly beyond my capabilities at the moment (maybe I will try this later when I have more time). I had hoped for sound but was doing this on my home laptop so if doing it for real in work would also put sound on.

I used Screencast-o matic and it was very simple and straightforward. I also experimented at home with Jing but as the "thing" writer suggested was unable to download this at work. I have also looked at (listened to?) Podcasts/podcasting which could be useful for recording library guides and improving our accessibility.

Thing 16

Reading this week's thing has made me realise that I should probably do more in this area. I am always putting the case for libraries with family, friends and colleagues but have not really gone any further than that. Although my main job is in an FE college I also do some hours in the Public Library and I do try and promote the Public Library to our students too so I guess that counts. One of my areas of interest is accessibility and so I am keen to show the students with learning difficulties whom I work with in college that they can use the Public Library and what it can offer them. I have taken accompanied a group of college students on a visit to the Public Library which they enjoyed. I guess there is not a lot more I can say at the moment other than pledge to spend some time looking at the links in this "thing" and reflect on what else I could be doing.

Thing 15

I have attended various seminars, conferences and events over the years although not all whilst working in a library context. Many related to a previous Human Resources training role concerning commissioning training for social workers. I have also been involved in organising such events. In terms of library work, apart from training events, I have attended the LIS show a couple of years ago in Birmingham which I enjoyed and have networked with peers at study school at Aberystwyth. More recently I have asked my line manager if I can attend the New Professionals Conference in 2012 and this has been agreed and put in my development plan for the year. I found out about library camp too late unfortunately.

As for presenting I have done this on a small scale, mainly in a training context or sometimes to management. I am looking forward (!) to the next couple of weeks of non- stop inductions to new students (I have jumped the gun and made my first Prezi for this). I have not given any presentations to fellow professionals as yet.

I tend to use Powerpoint as a prompt rather than be totally scripted but I always have some notes as a back-up. I have often used file cards (tied together with a treasury tag in case I drop them) one for notes for each slide. I am not then tied to notes on Powerpoint and can move away from the screen. I am more confident if I believe I know my topic well, and even more confident if I think my audience don't! It is a bugbear of mine if people write wordy Powerpoint slides and proceed to read them out so I tend to summarise (in case anyone is visually impaired) and presume my audience are literate .

Another point which I think is important to mention for anyone about to give a presentation is to slow down and take your time - aim to speak slower than you think you need to. Everyone rushes when nervous and the audience need to digest what you are saying. Pause on a slide to give the audience time to read it before rushing to the next or pause to take a sip of water - what seems like a long pause or gap to you will not seem so to the audience.

I'm looking forward to seeing what other cpd23 participants have to say on this "thing".

Thing 14 - Zotero, Mendeley and Citulike

Again, these tools look interesting and very useful. I have not used any of them before - it almost makes me wish I had carried on past the PG Dip to write a dissertation - maybe one day! They are probably beyond the needs of most of our FE students, but could be of interest to our growing number of HE students. I will aim to familiarise myself further and promote them in skills sessions.

Thing 13

Keeping it very brief as the busiest weeks of the year approach. I have scratched the surface of Thing13 to get an idea of what the software offers I can see potential for google docs and Dropbox although currently we tend to rely on sharing files via a shared drive as none of us work remotely.

I have attended a course previously on blogs and Wikis and am pleased to be able to put my basic blogging knowledge into practice on the CPD23 things. I haven't as yet exploited my knowledge of Wikis....at the moment my feelings are so many "things" so little time but I think it is just that time of year and once the new term gets off the ground I will be able to revisit some of the 23 things at a more leisurely pace.