Thing 19 Reflection

Well some time to reflect at last! It's part of our new school 'Values' which we are working on, so very apt. This course has been extremely useful in pointing me to tools that would help in my daily life. My favourite tools, some of which I already use, are: RSS, Twitter, Dropbox, Prezi, Evernote and learning much more about blogs. Many of the other tools I well come back to as my working life gets far more complex. I have signed up to communicate online with many librarian type groups as well. The problem here is finding the time to keep up with it all. I have completed many Prezi inductions this week and am getting used to the ebb and flow of the software which is indeed much easier than Powerpoint to control, but takes longer to put together a 'profesisonal' looking presentation. Dropbox has proved invaluable for not only accessing my documents anywhere, but also in sharing documents. Some tools seem to be blocked by the school network or unavailable except on Firefox, but at least there are plenty of alternatives. RSS is a quick and easy way to stay up to date without getting too involved in other online groups. My question is how do these librarians have the time to be constantly posting? I want their jobs! Even Twitter is becoming alarming to keep up with and I will need to 'weed' the groups I am following in order to reduce the number of posts I have to plough through. I need to spend time sifting in order to black out so much 'white noise' and make life a little simpler but more productive. I hope the links to all of the web 2.0 tools will stay on the CPD23 wepages for a little while after the end of the course in order to revisit them when time and circumstances dictate. If nothing else, having the knowledge of what's available and the confidence to explore is a huge step forward. As a digital immigrant as apposed to the natives under 20, this has allowed me to keep one step ahead. I've become a bit of a school guru to whom some members of the teaching staff come to for advice, which is always a plus in my book as it creates a stronger relationship with other departments in many ways. What we need next is more information from Librarians on the next generation of tools used on mobile technologues such as ipads. It's all very well getting Apps designers to 'sell' their wares, but reviews from those on the ground would be very useful!