Reflection and what next? #cpd23

Well here we are at thing 23! I've enjoyed the 23 things for professional development programme, and all the learning and reflecting that has come out of it, even if it has been a bit of a rush to the finish! There has been a nice mixture of new technology and tools to learn about, with other aspects of development covered too. I have appreciated the reflection weeks as a chance to reinforce learning, think about how things are going, and remind myself of what I have learnt so far.

Several months ago I put together a Personal Development Plan for chartership. This built on the personal development plan that my manager and I had discussed at work, which included goals that were directly relevant to my job. I then expanded this by thinking about what I would like to do that wasn't directly relevant to that role, and some areas that I thought I would need to develop in the future. I shared this with my chartership mentor, who was very good at getting me to think in terms of measurable and time-limited goals. My PDP has recently expanded since I started my second part-time library job almost three months ago, with new short-term achievable goals and learning outcomes added. I find a PDP a very useful exercise as it provides a structure for measuring progress against, and makes me step back and think about where I need to develop and what I want to do next.

So what next? I'll be working through the action points on my PDP, collecting evidence and reflecting as I go, and then eventually trying to put together my portfolio for chartership. I will put some of the things I have learnt from this programme into practice at work - perhaps a screencast will be next on the agenda. I aim to carry on with this blog for cpd to record some of my learning and reflections (although probably not quite as frequently as I have done over the last month!)

Before I end this post, I would just like to say thanks so much to the cpd23 team for all their hard work putting the programme together, answering questions, providing encouragement and everything else they have done.

23 Things for Professional Development

So here is where this blog may start to get confusing...as well as Cam 23 2.0, I've decided to have a go at the 23 Things for Professional Development and put it all on the same blog. Will this work? I hope so!

I'm hoping to be able to keep up with both 23 things programmes. When doing last year's 23 Things, I found it very helpful to have set things to do and reflect on each week, and a deadline to work towards. Sometimes it can be difficult to fit CPD into the normal working week, so this structure is a great way of ensuring that it doesn't get put off! I'm looking forward to the wide mixture of things, including the less-technology focussed ones. Some of the things I know a bit about and some will be completely new to me (e.g. Jing). The reflection weeks will be useful as I'd like to improve on reflective practice, something which will be good practice for Chartership.

One of the aspects of CPD23 that is particularly interesting to me is that so many people all over the world can get involved. I'll be interested to have a look at some blogs from outside the Cambridge library sector as well as within. Thing 2, here we come!