Thing 8

My ideal festival - watching Jarvis strut his stuff from the front row. Except not really.

Ok, so while I am still dedicated to continuing with cpd23-ing, from now on my posts are also going to focus on my MA studies at Northumbria University.  I enrolled last week! Very excited! Also extremely apprehensive about it but determined to try my best. I visited the fabulous Seven Stories http://www.sevenstories.org.uk/ yesterday. Not the first time I have been, but the first time I have been without children in tow (nice to be able to view without the constant interruptions...). Mainly went to see the Anthony Browne exhibition which is on at the moment. Brought back memories of my highest scoring Open Uni assignment of this year, all on the wonderful Voices in the Park, which my youngest daughter and I still find something new in, every time we read it.  But anyway, visiting Seven Stories always reminds me just how much I love books, and has made me even more excited for my course to get going.

Onto Thing 8, Google Calendar. I already have this, as I have had a gmail account for a few years now. The problem is I do not use it consistently. Also I find it hard sometimes to decide whether something is more an 'event' than a 'task', but that's just me and my chronic indecisiveness. Also, like many people have said on other CPD23 blogs I have read, I use Outlook at work, and it sort of defeats the object of being super efficient and organised and having everything noted on a calendar, if you are having to input things on more than one calendar. I am trying to use it more however, and like how easy it is to share stuff, so perhaps I will start to use it more in future. Or perhaps it will be more like my pocket diary, of which I obtain one of every year, write in it religiously for the first week of January, and then it ends up lying in the bottom of my handbag, with the odd boiled sweet stuck to it...

Thing 7

Back to blogging, after a super 2 days in sunny(ish) Brighton. Sunnier than the north east, that's for sure. Onto Thing 7, the very title of which terrifies me - Face to Face Networks!??! You mean, like, talking to people you don't even KNOW and stuff?!! Gosh. How scary. I must admit, I've had a negative image of networking in the past, simply based on the fact that, in my job in the architectural sector, all the people I know who are really 'into' networking seem to be into it for the wrong reasons (maybe I'm just jealous when it's used as an excuse to bunk off work for a whole afternoon and get drunk, who knows!). But from things I have learnt since starting CPD23, and from reading the blogs of others, I am starting to see that it can be very useful indeed. I intend to become a member of CILIP shortly, making good use of the reduced student fee, and thanks to CPD23 I have discovered the possibility of a north east library group monthly meet up which would be nice to attend. Especially as the meets take place in a pub. Where there is usually cider.

I finally get my BA (Hons) Degree!! Oh, and Thing 5 and 6

This week is a good week for two reasons. Only 17 or so years after originally beginning my degree, I have just received notification that I have passed! I am now an honours graduate! Long live the Open University! Hopefully the distance learning element will stand me in good stead as my MA is also to be studied at a distance. I would prefer to get to attend physically, and meet fellow students, but hey you can't have everything. It is also a good week as the mighty Toon Army beat Sunderland in last Saturday's derby game.

I'm going to cheat and do these two Things together. Partly as an attempt to catch up some more, partly because  if I think I've been rambling for the earlier Things, I'll really really be rambling for Reflective Practice. I've been checking out a few other blogs but haven't commented much as most of the blogs I look at are way ahead of me and I've really only had the time to read posts of the Things I am up to, much as I would love to read more.

Onto online networks. A few months ago I was only on Facebook and spent some, though not too much, time on there. I can't see myself leaving Facebook - it's far too useful for keeping up with people I'd otherwise very rarely hear from, and I like looking at photos of friends and family that I care about. But apart from that I can take it or leave it. And although I have joined various groups of things I am interested in professionally, I really see Facebook as being purely personal in nature.

I have signed up to LinkedIn and it probably could be useful in the future, but at the moment I don't think I'll be spending much time on there.   LISNPN on the other hand I think I may spend some time on, in fact I have just seen that they are asking for students to blog their study experiences so have decided I will keep up this blog once I am done with cpd23 to document my experiences at Northumbria University.  Lets see how long I last....

Thing 4 - Current awareness. Twitter, RSS & Pushnote (with a Steve Brookstein mention thrown in)

I love Twitter! I only joined a short while ago, and only because a friend suggested I did as his business had just created a Twitter account.  So I joined out of curiosity, to see what it was all about. I readily admit I was one of those people who really did think Twitter was mainly celebrities 'tweeting about what they had for breakfast'. It took me less than an hour to realise what a useful tool Twitter could actually be.  For example, because of Twitter I found out about CPD23. I would never have known about it otherwise. The more time I spend on Twitter, the less time I spend on Facebook, which is starting to look decidedly amateurish and silly to me to be honest. I expect Twitter to become ever more useful in a professional (and personal) capacity as i become more au fait with it. If there is a downside to Twitter, I would suggest it is how time consuming it can be. I can easily log on intending to have a quick look but then one things leads to another and before I know it I've been there an hour. But the benefits far outweigh this aspect. Also, who would ever have thought that Steve Brookstein could be so entertaining! I think I need to learn to have more self control.....

Just joined Pushnote.  I don't get it. Can anybody shed any light?? In what way is it useful? I'm sure it must be but I just can't see it yet.  Also signed up for RSS but have yet to spend any time there to comment, though I suspect I may start to suffer from information overload if I'm not careful!

Thing 3 - personal brand

Still catching up, even more so now after a lovely 5 days in rainy Shropshire. Onto Thing 3.

Not got too much to say on this one. I've always thought it a bit vain, googling oneself - but probably only because nothing ever used to come up for me. But I've just tried it - nothing comes up with just my name (there are a LOT of Karen Halls), but I tried adding Newcastle afterwards and on one search engine my twitter page was the third result, and on another my facebook was the second - displaying to the world some of my interests, from the RSC to Stewie Griffin off Family Guy. I find this quite exciting actually, but I can see how it might be very disconcerting to others that pretty much anyone can search and potentially find stuff out about you online.

I can see the value behind trying to have some continuity between various sites. For this reason I'm trying to use the same photo always, and trying to keep things simple, like using just my name - as someone who fairly recently did away with her first ever email address where I was known to all and sundry as, rather childishly, kazzababy74, this seems to make more sense to me.

Hopefully, as I learn more and more about scary technological things, I will be able to improve the overall look of my Twitter, and blog etc, and try to increase my online profile in a professional way.

Thing 2 - NOT the one from Dr Seuss, sorry

I can't believe I've set up my own blog, and that it was relatively painless. This time yesterday I thought a widget was something you found in the bottom of a can of beer, but now I've successfully added widgets to my blog!

So Thing 2 asks us to check out some of blogs of fellow participants. What a daunting prospect that is, there are so many of them! The only way to do it, I thought, was to scroll down the list and find blog names I am drawn to, for whatever reason - I mean, who could fail to be intrigued by the title Join the mass debate with Auntie Daniel, or curious - if a little apprehensive to be faced with the World's Deadliest Librarian!

I have also tried to find some by bloggers who are perhaps in a similar position to mine. I do not even have a library position at the moment, but begin postgraduate training in library management later this year.

Now I just need someone to read mine......

Playing Catch Up

Well, only 6 or so weeks after the start date I FINALLY get round to starting my blog! Better late than never as they say.

So, the cpd23 blog says to begin with a little bit about 1. why I've decided to take part, 2. where my career is at present, and 3. what I hope to gain from it.  Here goes...
1. I think I'm doing it more as a personal challenge to myself as much as anything else
2. My career - what career!
3. I hope to gain inspiration from others, increased knowledge, and get over my technophobia!

A bit about me
I ambled through my twenties thinking work was just something people do to survive and that it doesn't have to be fulfilling in any way, not regretting my earlier decision to drop out of university before completing my degree.  But then I reached 30 and, to be honest, realised I was BORED. So for the last 6 years I have been studying towards a BA (Hons) Literature with the Open University (result due this Friday, yikes!).

It took me a long time to get there, but I had a sort of epiphany (sorry,  bit melodramatic there) over the last year when I realised where I really want to be working - and that is in a library. It made perfect sense - I LOVE libraries, always have, love reading, love to help people.

I am now happy to say that in September I begin a Masters course at Northumbria University in Information & Library Management, yay me!

So lets see how much I can learn over the rest of the summer through cpd23.....