Thing 18 - Reflective Practice

Oh no, another one of these...

I have mixed feelings about these reflective exercises, of all the “Things”, these are the exercises I least look forward to. Picking up on one of the downsides John Cox writes about – that of over-analysis – I figured out this is why I don’t like these exercises.

As someone that for many years, with few friends or peers I spent a lot of time in my own head, I over-analysed things to death. I used to spend many hours every night, awake, not counting sheep, but over thinking the smallest things in my life, basically worrying myself to sleep. Ya! That was healthy.

Finally I figured out to ask myself two questions;

·       1. How does this affect me and/or

·       2. Is this something out of my control

These questions helped me “put-to-bed” a lot of things I worried about and allowed me to concentrate on those things that affected me the greatest that I could do something about. I was probably 25 before I figured this out after 15 years of being stuck in my head in circular arguments and worries. When it boiled down to it, it’s amazing the number of things we worry about that we can do absolutely nothing about so we have to learn to just let things run their course. I’m over 40 now and STILL get nightmares about the leaving cert exam. Go! The Irish Education System. Instilling fear and nightmares for life!

It’s really funny how one thing leads to another when you are on the internet, just browsing and something grabs your attention. I was looking for a nice picture to start this exercise with, (one of reflection) which lead me to THIS and then this article caught my eye. My thesis in college was comparing the Theory versus Practical experience of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

(CC Jackie Gerstein)

After reading this article I came to realise how close the Rudai21 course is to meeting people’s needs through technology

Description.

The last four exercises have been about:

Thing 14 - Personal Information Management. Using different apps to manage your life, timetable and to-do-list.

Thing 15 - Evaluating information and using the example of Wikipedia. We looked at how as library professionals we can change the perception of it’s weaknesses.

Thing 16 - My digital footprint, looking after, protecting and managing your online presence and 

Thing 17 - Sharing a slideshow.

Feelings & Evaluation.

I didn’t like Thing 14, I prefer to use old fashioned methods to manage my life (handwriting a shopping list) and dislike having multiple apps and programs having access to every aspect of my life. I also thought the title was misleading. On a first reading I though the exercise was about “managing (i.e. security & accuracy) the information that was available about you online. If you have multiple devices some of these apps would be useful.

Thing 15 (Wikipedia) was ok but I still think Wikipedia should employ information professional to fix the problems with Wikipedia rather than asking Librarians to do the job.  I think if libraries had more funding and resources to make their collections more accessible online this would do away with the need to go to Wikipedia as a first port of call.

Thing 16 was good but it should have been one of the earlier exercises, we shouldn’t have been working on our online presence with Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, Instagram and LinkedIn without first covering one’s online presence. I would suggest that this should be Thing 1 in the future.

Thing 17, sharing a slideshow was cool. I enjoyed this exercise and found it really easy (that is sharing the slideshow). Of course because I didn’t have a slideshow to share I had to create one which has given me an interesting project to do in the future.

Analysis & Conclusion.

I found little use for the apps in Thing 14 and will not be using any of them in the future.

Thing 15. I will still use Wikipedia as a first port of call when researching anything. I would like to learn more and will probably watch some more how-to videos about creating and editing articles. I’m against Librarians and Information Professionals being used to fix the mistakes in Wikipedia. I do however see the advantage of getting a group of volunteers together and doing a session, tackling a particular area and blitzing it for the day. This would be something I wouldn’t mind heading up.

Thing 16, my digital footprint was good but this should be Thing 1. I am fairly careful with my online presence but still need to what actions I should take if my laptop or mobile phone is stolen or lost.

Thing 17 was cool and it gave me an interesting project to get stuck into this year. Expect to see a much better selection of LGBT titles in Wexford by the end of the year.

Action Plan.

Ironically, after the last few exercises I have a to-do-list (and could use one of the apps from Thing 14)

1.       Learn more about Wikipedia, maybe organise a volunteer day to tackle a subject

2.       Invesitgate what to do if my laptop/phone is missing

3.       Look into the LGBT titles in Wexford Library.

To return to where this all started, the Rudai23 course has covered most of Maslow’s Heirarchy of needs. Here I’ve compared both...

Overall, I’ve really enjoyed this course and Things 14-17 were interesting. When looking at everything covered so far, you can see we have done so much. If there was one “Thing” that should be done for the next course is that Thing 16 should be moved to Thing 1.

I love blogging and my latest entry has had 1,535 views in 3 days.

Toodles

John The Captain Ryan.