CPD 23 - Thing #23 - Reflection

As we come to the end of this professional development program, we have been asked to reflect on what we have learned and to project the next step in our career development.

One idea was creating a "six word story" that descibes our experience with CPD 23. My story is: Signed-up, Read, Investigated, Reflected, Blogged, Applied.

What does the career future hold for the next 3-5 years. I currently work part-time as a specialist, and apart from the library, conduct and manage a very talented adult concert band. My career future involves juggling both entities. Although pushing 65, the magical age of medicare and retirement, I could continue to develop my library career by completing my MLS degree and applying for full-time positions. However, to do that would be to limit the growth of my "volunteer" musical organization--certainly a strong "bliss" area for me.

Nearing retirement, and with a growing musical organization, I've decided to remain at the part-time specialist level, and continue my professional development through activites like CPD 23 and those sponsored by my state library association. I need the hours-off to manage all the business for my adult band, and to study the musical scores I have to conduct. This in itself is professional development.

From the CPD 23 program I have gained exposure to some software, like "Jing," that I have already put to good use, and insights into presenting oneself throuh resumes and job interviews. I will use concepts contained in the latter as I promote my adult band. Other relevant "things" I have used are Mentorship, Evernote, LinkedIn, and facebook and Twitter social media. Perhaps the most significant topic for me was in developing your personal brand.

This program has been valuable to me as a person, it has covered a variety of topics, and presented some new ideas. I'm very glad that I took part.

CPD23 - Thing 19 - Reflection and Adoption

During our CPD23 experience we've been exposed to a number of applications and websites that can improve our online professional image, and help us create teaching demonstrations.

I found the "Thing" on branding very helpful and have cleaned up a couple of my profiles on various social sites. As a result, I started a professional Twitter presence and made some changes in the professional presence on facebook. I really like the examples of LinkedIn profiles that were posted, and I plan to re-vamp my profile in a couple of weeks.

I was already familiar with several of the tools such as dropbox, google docs, and audacity, but some new tools that I want to investigate are Mendeley and Jing.

I appreciate the effort to create this professional development series, and congratulate the authors/compilers on a wonderful asset for working library staffers.