Tuesday 21 June 2011

[CPD23] Thing 1: Blogs and Blogging

For the next three months I will be taking part in 23 Things for Professional Development. I'll highlight each CPD23 post in the title so if you're supremely uninterested in my blundering through various Things then you can skip these posts, or equally if you want to avoid my personal ramblings and just came here for the Things then you can skip the rest!

Right, CPD23. Let's get cracking.

I'm on the organising team for CPD23, and will be writing the blog post for Thing 4: Current Awareness. It was back in January I first heard about Niamh's plan for a 23 Things style programme that included practical things you could do to help your CPD, and thought it was a fantastic idea. As someone very new to the profession (I'm a graduate trainee in the library of one of the colleges of the University of Cambridge) I'm looking forward to meeting new people and learning ways to develop new skills.

So on to blogs and blogging. Not counting a bit of dabbling I did a few years ago, I've been blogging fairly regularly since September 2010. Most of what I write on here is library related, but occasionally I'll slip in the odd personal update. At the moment I tend to use my blog more or less as a diary, blogging about conferences I've been to, visits I've been on as part of my traineeship, talks I've attended etc. One thing I would like to do is improve my reflective writing, as often I end up just writing what happened, and not what I learnt from it. Hopefully I will get into the habit of this during CPD23!

I'm also really looking forward to reading other people's blogs. I always like finding new things to add to my Google Reader, and with over 400 people signed up that's an awful lot of new things!

'Writing' by tonyhall on Flickr

6 comments:

  1. Haha - I love that you cut out a joke from your first blog post (you should have totally kept it in...!)I'm fairly new to the blogging scene, but I'm already finding it quite useful to use as a diary, especially as in a year's time, I am quite likely to have forgotten a lot of the interesting library-related things I've been up to! :) I think it will definitely come in useful in the future, when we're looking at Chartership, as we'll have unknowingly already started to build a portfolio online! Anyway, I look forward to reading more of your posts! C xx

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  2. Haha I think it was for the best, making jokes about Game of Thrones and incest when sleep deprived is something I'm bound to regret in the morning!

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  3. I agree about the diary comment - there is only so much that an actual desk diary can hold! A blog also forces me to reflect on what I have seen and remember it much better!

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  4. It's the reflecting part that I always forget to do!

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  5. Looking forward to thing 4 and reading other people's blogs. They always seem to be able to say what I want to say but are much better at saying it ;)

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  6. I completely agree about reflective writing, I've been blogging for about a year (give or take a six-month maternity break) and I always write up my notes but forget to revisit them and reflect. One week in to CPD23 and I'm already playing catch-up but hopefully I'll get better as the weeks go on! Looking forward to reading your posts.

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