Thing 14-Zotero

I've just spent a happy half hour playing with Zotero and it's fair to say I'm suitably impressed!  We are in the middle of helping students with their EPQs and many of these students are struggling to organise their references and keep track of what information came from where.  I think Zotero will provide the solution to keeping track of web based references and encourage students to reference correctly and not fall into the plagiarism pit!  As we are running support sessions for EPQ students I plan to demonstrate Zotero to groups of them, it should work well as Firefox is the browser of choice on our Macs!

Thing 23-The end or just the beginning?

Wow!  What a whistle stop tour of things to make our life easier, more collaborative, more interesting and ultimately to ensure we make more of an impact in our work.  I've thoroughly enjoyed taking part and thank everyone who has contributed.  I've been challenged to find more training and networking opportunites and to make use of new tools such as evernote and slideshare.  I've also been inspired to share some of these tools with my colleagues and have already done so with Jing which has been very well received.
On my development plan is the need to disseminate the tools and messages I have learnt about to my colleagues particularly with the team of Library staff I manage.  I also want to try and use more tools on a regular basis, particularly on our VLE where staff and students will see them and hopefully be inspired to use them too!
Finally, I intend to keep on blogging and checking in with the blogs of others as I have really enjoyed hearing about the experiences of other participants and would like to 'keep in touch', albeit virtually!

Thing 22-Volunteering

During my teacher training I completed a number of teaching practices and learnt far more in those weeks than I did in the hours of lectures I attended.  After all, you can't beat getting real, hands on experience.  Here at college there is a real emphasis of 'leadership at all levels' and part and parcel of this is gaining experience through taking ownership of something new in order to develop and acquire skills.  From experience some staff and students really throw themselves into this and get fully involved.  They understand that in order to progress in their career they need to gain further experiences and skills, otherwise they will be limited to the roles they can realistically apply for.  Other staff are more reticent to taking on new challenges and roles.  These staff may be happy in their job role and have no desire to progress so why would they volunteer to do extra?  For others being given additional time or money to compensate for time spent on a project is an issue.  These staff often don't appreciate that completing volunteering roles will enhance their own professional development and pay dividends in the future.  I suppose it comes down to the individual and how much passion and drive they have to progress in a career.

Thing 21-Promoting yourself

I found this timely and interesting reading.  Whilst I'm not applying for a new job or compiling my CV, I have recently completed the performance management reviews with my staff.  I can confirm that it is certainly difficult for many people to boast about (or in some cases even identify) their strengths, skills and USPs.  As a reflective exercise I found it beneficial to answer the questions in Part 1-almost like a back to basics exercise.  I thought this 'thing' was well written and informative and when the time comes to job search I'm sure it will be very useful.

Thing 20-Library routes

I've just spent an enjoyable half hour browsing through the career routes of other library staff and it's been a revelation.  It's interesting to see how many fell into being a librarian or came to the career from a completely different job.  It was also reassuring to hear how many people are in the same situation as myself i.e. not a trained librarian but working in a library environment!

Thing 17- Prezi and slideshare

I have used slideshare often in the past and agree that by watching visual demonstrations you can learn much more than reading guides.  I haven't actually uploaded any presentations of my own though so this could be a professional development target for myself!
I have however prepared and used prezi and think it's a brilliant alternative to powerpoint.  This is largely due to the non-linear nature of the presentation-the audience doesn't know what is next and they are more likely to continue listening.  I've had a few layout issues and haven't been able to use Prezi on an iPad but other than that I think it's a really useful tool (and it's free!).

Thing 19-Another breather!

Things I have started using:
Evernote
Twitter (for work purposes!)
Google calendar
Mendeley

I have also been extolling the virtues of Jing, Dropbox, Google Docs and Evernote to others who have not used them yet as I feel these tools will have the most impact on the staff and students here.

Perhaps the most beneficial 'by-product' of the 23 things is the networking opportunities that have come about.  I've really enjoyed reading the blogs of other participants (and 'borrowing' some of their ideas along the way too!).