Thing 18
Thing 18 is the reflective practice for the Critical Thinker section of Rudai 23, and on the whole, the Things in this section have been the most challenging for me. The article by John Cox was very interesting and it was very refreshing to hear someone else’s point of view of reflective writing. Although I’m not sure I would be up to or have the motivation to write every week like John Cox.
Thing 14 focused on Personal information management (PIM) and the organizing and storing information and activities in all forms. There were two tasks, the first to use Evernote and the second to use two of the smaller tools mentioned, I chose Remember the Milk and Pocket. This was the least demanding of the Things and allowed me to continue to develop my understanding of various information service tools. As I mentioned in my Thing 14 post most of my current notes and lists are on pieces of paper (in rather a chaotic manner!), but I feel that I will continue to use pen and paper despite efficient nature of tools like Evernote, Remember the Milk and Pocket. While this is the current situation I am not saying that I will never use these tools and I will keep an open mind as they may become very useful in the future!
Thing 15 looked at Evaluating Information, specifically focusing on how we assess and consider Wikipedia. For convenience when writing Thing 15 I focused on my experience of Wikipedia within an academic setting and not in everyday life. Overall, this Thing was the second most challenging of the Things, not only did I find the task of finding a citation for Wikipedia somewhat daunting, putting that task into practice proved very difficult as it took me several hours to find a citation that I was able to add (in the end, with some patience and persistence I managed to find two citations!). Despite these issues and my own reservations about Wikipedia (which I outlined in my Thing 15 post) it was a very informative and I learned a great deal about Wikipedia and I would like in the future to continue with the ‘1lib1ref’ initiative.
Think 16 was on “Your Digital Footprint” and drew attention to how we should be aware of the trail lave trail of data we create while using the Internet, including visiting websites, sending emails, and the information submitted to online services and/or forms. While I am aware of my digital footprint I was not aware of all the aspects of it and I am probably not careful as I should be. The task for Thing 16 was to look through a list of points in relation to our digital footprint to be aware of them and how we can protect ourselves. For me, these points provided not only a useful checklist but also a practical analysis as to how competently I was dealing with my digital footprint.
Thing 17 which was on Sharing Your Work was the most challenging for me because I am not working or studying in Library or Information Services. Having no presentations or papers to share and not enough knowledge about the LIS area to know what conferences I would like to present at in the future I was at a loss to what to write. After some thought I chose a slightly different approach to Thing 17 and wrote on two seminars I went to during my library work experience as they were my first introduction to seminars in the LIS area. The seminars give me a basis for understanding and considering the different types of conferences that exist within the LIS area; and while I do not have any work to publish at present, I have begun to think about and reflect on if and what I would present or write on in the future.
As the name of this section states these Things definitely made me think more critically: about the way I write, how I assess the information I come across online, what I write online and where I write it, and how I would share any of my work in the future. These Things were thought-provoking (particularly Thing 14 and 16), they required me to think outside the box to complete the tasks (especially Thing 17), and they necessitated some patience and persistence to complete (as was the case for Thing 15). Overall, despite the minor setbacks these were a very useful and beneficial set of Things.
