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Thing 5 - mirror, mirror

For Thing 5, we've to reflect: on what we did, what we learned, and what we can take forward from it.

So...what have I learned so far?

To be honest...not a huge amount, yet. As an active blogger, Tweeter, and user of RSS feeds, the only thing new to me that the programme has thrown up so far is Pushnote, which I decided not to trial for the reasons I stated before.

Is this a bad thing though?
No - every new activity needs to build up its participants from basics, and I knew when I signed up that the early stages were unlikely to provide anything new for me. It's the later Things that I expect will be more relevant to me, so this will still develop into an interesting activity to be a part of.

Although I have noticed that I've already slipped back into "minimal commenting" mode again - after the second cdps23 post, which encouraged comments on posts, I've not really been posting many comments. This is probably because I don't really have time to do much more than skim through them in my feed reader during breaks - it's only posts that really catch my eye that make me click through to the actual blog in order to make a comment. But that's fine with me - I've now got more interesting library feeds in my reader than I did before this, and they're a manageable amount for me.

But, how am I at being reflective anyway?

Although the material from it doesn't appear here,  I do already take part in my employers appraisal system...this involves identifying me and my service's development needs, deciding how to meet them, and providing regular updates on my progress towards those goals. This system supported and helped me to manage my activities when compiling my Portfolio for my Chartership submission, and is also helping me as I work towards Revalidation. The need to identify issues, act on them, and produce supporting documentation on the outcome (including any problems) mean I'm constantly assessing where I am, where I should be, and how I'll get to where I should be .

I'm also working with Bethan Ruddock on a wiki we set up to allow us to informally mentor each other (for Revalidation for me, and eventual-Chartership for her), and help manage our professional activities....and make sure we manage to schedule in time to reflect on what we're doing professionally (or not doing!), why we're doing it, and we write up the evidence of the process soon after we do it. Working like this also allows the other wiki participant to give suggestions and feedback, which can be incorporated into further professional activities and materials.

So, I feel like I've got both a formal, employer-based system that encourages me to reflect in order to provide evidence of participation in that system, and an informal, voluntary system that does the same.

And with the informal system, I get chocolate when I've been a good girl  ;)
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