Things have been a bit quiet since I completed the cpd23 programme, but I have been thinking about it, and have written the article below for our staff bulletin, in the hope of encouraging staff who may have an interest in cpd to have a go!
Web 2.0 – what does it mean to you??
Way back in June 2009 we ran a session for Bib Services staff on new things that were happening on the internet; we thought it might be useful for staff to at least know of the existence of things like facebook, yammer, twitter, blogs, and wikis etc., and then they could have a look and evaluate these services in relation to their work.
But, a lot has changed since the summer of 2009 and while some services have taken off beyond belief, some have fallen by the wayside and new ones have emerged. Keeping oneself up-to-date can be almost impossible! And that's where cpd23 comes in!
You may already have heard of it - you may already be doing it! But, if you haven't/aren't it's based on the 23 things programme of 2006, devised by staff in Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County which aimed to encourage staff to explore new technologies http://plcmcl2-things.blogspot.com/ . This was followed in the UK by a 23 things programme devoted to public library staff, (review here: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue64/leech/ ), which, in turn, inspired the 23 things Cambridge in 2010 ( http://23thingscambridge.blogspot.com/ ), which was repeated in 2011 ( http://cam23things.blogspot.com/ ), and has now prompted a cpd23 programme for all library staff - http://cpd23.blogspot.com/ This is a brief history; I may not have got it exactly right and I may not have cited all the instances of the 23 things programme, but, you get the idea that it’s a tried and trusted training method!
Initially, when I enrolled on cpd23 in June 2011, there were about 200 people registered, but by the end of programme there were nearly 800 participants! I joined the programme partly because I wanted to be more up-to-date with what was available, and there was an advantage in being pointed in the right direction for potentially useful resources, in being able to follow the programme at my own pace, in being encouraged to blog and in being encouraged to learn by reflection about things.
Apart from learning about weird and wonderful whizzy webby things – jing, online calendars, file-sharing options, online networking, etc. - there were also things that covered topics like advocacy, conferences, qualifying as a librarian, and mentoring, as well as several opportunities to sit back and reflect – well, actually to write up my reflection in my blog.
Along the way, the cpd23 things were supplemented by cpd23 tweets, a cpd23 LinkedIn discussion board, several physical meet-ups for various geographical regions and a live twitter chat, #uklibchat. An added bonus, that I hadn’t anticipated before, was the benefit of contact with other folk who were following the programme; finding like-minded souls was quite an eye-opener for me (no, really, I didn’t respond to thing 2 by looking for blog titles that looked as though they might have been created by cataloguers!)
All-in-all, I found the cpd23 programme extremely helpful as it almost forced me to look at things that I’d heard of but never found the time to investigate, whilst at the same time showed me things I’d not heard of. I would encourage anyone who wants to try and keep up to give it a go!
cpd23 – now that’s the course for me!!
No comments:
Post a Comment