Thing 19 - Catch up week on integrating 'things'

Since the last two 'things' I have left to complete are reflective (19 & 23), I am going to use 19 to look back & 23 to look forward.

Things which I've enjoyed/found useful from CPD23:

1. Learning to blog & reading other blogs.
2. Using Twitter - this is probably the thing which I have most successfully integrated into my daily life. I love the conciseness of the format & am even getting bolder about tweeting myself. I find it useful for a wide variety of information - current news, arts & cultural events, job opportunities, conference tweets, & feeling part of the wider library & information profession. It's probably the first thing I read after my emails.
3. Google Calendar - I've now got used to the little reminders on my phone each morning as I travel into work! Haven't used this for work as yet.
4. Collaborative tools - enjoyed having my eyes opened to the potential of cloud computing. Have used Dropbox to back up some files.
5. Evernote - have merrily been clipping & saving web pages with this. Have created a 'Dream Jobs' Notebook into which I save any library or information jobs which take my fancy (not usually ones which I am qualified to do!). This is useful to ponder to see if any patterns emerge as to what areas I would like to work in.

Things which I haven't found so useful from CPD23:

1. RSS feeds - I really did try to keep up with following these, but just couldn't find the time. I find it far easier to follow & read blogs/articles as & when they are mentioned on Twitter.
2. Pushnote - just never got off the ground with this.

I have picked out these two as I know that whatever my circumstances I would not find them useful, whereas there were several tools which I learnt about during CPD23 e.g. citation tools, screen capture tools, which I would look forward to implementing if I was in different employment or educational situations.

Things which I wished I'd achieved from CPD23:
1. Ability to network face-to-face. I think that CPD23 has been good for me in terms of online social networking, but for an introvert like myself I think the danger lies in fading into the background in real life! Not good when you're trying to raise your profile & your employment prospects. The problem is I just can't shake off that 'wallflower' attitude - I slunk in the corners at Library Camp, & made a half-hearted invitation for an end-of-CPD23 get-together in the Bournemouth area.

Anyway, I'm going to leave the optimistic, looking-forward stuff to my next & final blog of CPD23!

Thing 13 - Google Docs, Wikis and Dropbox

As I mentioned in my last blog, I have been looking forward to trying out the tools in Thing 13 (not so unlucky).

Google Docs & Dropbox - I have no experience of using either of these in a work, educational or personal context, but, having read up about them, can see the great potential. I've owned & used many USB sticks for work & personal use, & thankfully have never (touches wood here) had disasters with losing one. The concept of cloud computing does seem appealing & I suppose one has to weigh up for oneself the pros & cons of online security of information versus the risk of something like a USB device going astray. It is, however, the potential for collaboration which I find appealing & has made me want to try one of these tools out.
 Currently, I cannot think of a place for using either of them in my paid or voluntary work (health service & primary school respectively). However, as a member of a local natural science society, I am currently involved in helping to catalogue their museum's collections. I have jointly taken responsibility with one other person for cataloguing a specific part of the collection & we are storing the access database on a USB stick. As we do not always attend the society at the same time, this relies on us remembering to leave the stick for the other to use! I am now quite keen to discuss the use of a collaborative tool for our sharing of this task. I know that Dropbox has limitations in terms of free storage capacity & the potential for deletion of files after lengthy inactivity, but the ability to download, work offline & then upload is appealing. Also, I wonder how Google Docs would work with formatting an Access document?

Wikis - I have no experience of creating or collaborating on a Wiki. I do use Wikipedia as a kind of quick-fix reference tool when I want to look up something/someone quickly that I know nothing about in order to get a general idea. The other wiki which I recently looked at was for libcampuk11 . Maybe I could take my first steps in contributing to a wiki by adding a cake suggestion to the cakecamp section!