Activity 3.1 - personal & professional development objectives

What have I learned about my strengths and weaknesses?

Weaknesses?
On the whole I'm most vulnerable in a few key areas... researching new developments, issues and academic findings stands out as the most pressing one. When I think about it, I'm more of a "handson" learner .. and thus I tend to avoid it or at the very least only "do" it when something becomes topical enough that it requires learning more about it in formal ways. I'm not one to devote time to do it on a regular basis (and I'm now really curious how others address the same need for it) but the exercise of doing a detailed review of my job description made it pretty obvious that my current strategy won't be enough. I also realized the importance of promoting effective community building - something that I highly value and yet I haven't committed time and resources to learning more on how to effectively realize it in ages and certainly not much in the way of realizing it online.

It's now looking pretty obvious that in addressing these two shortcomings, my game as an Education Technology Specialist is raised .. and it should help feed the other "stronger cards in my hand".

Strengths?
I really wanted to avoid declaring myself an expert of anything. I'm not fond of the term because I don't consider it something that anyone should really be"annointing themselves with. Perhaps with the formal recognition of my peers on the same topic, I would feel more comfortable using the term.. but that hasn't happened anywhere often enough nor with much fanfare for me to do it. I've only learned since being hired how I have a reputation for making and using learning objects effectively. As a result, I managed to convince myself that perhaps I could be bold enough to apply the term "expert" for my effective use of technology / projects in teaching and learning. But only after carefully reviewing it and even still, I'm bound to be brown nosed by someone else out there. My grounds? A now 20 year period of relatively uninterrupted experience with and increased understandng of the use of technology in teaching and learning.

The matter of comparing myself with my peers brought up a number of other interesting problems and unearthed another set of issues. Our rather small department hardly gives me much of anyone to compare myself with and to go outside the University, I'd be hard pressed to know others of our ilke who I could meet to compare notes. Which raises the issue of professional "isolation" and the need to make a conscious effort to overcome this. Thus the only really viable option seems to be online communities. This theme is emerging more and more.

Reflection - Activity 3.1 My own template for PDP

By completing the pdp grid, I became really aware of the challenges of doing a deep review of my current job. In the process I've got a more intimate knowledge of the demands and skills required of me, but equally important, the expectations others may have of me.

I was very aware of a sort of distillation process taking place. I started with my job description. This seemed only logical to me because the job is relatively new for me. I set to work at mining it for a list of skills attitudes and needs ... which led to monster list (about 60 in all). That raised concerns about what sort of an animal I might be realizing for myself - one that could be overwhelming and unmanageable for the purposes of the course. .. so I sought out some objectivity. Threw a bit of a plea to Anne. She provided some valuable feedback on my concerns and my work so far - essentially offering guidance on how I might take what I had already and move forward with it. I did by somehow paring the many items down to a manageable number via typing and sorting them in Excel, then rewriting them so they were general enough, yet still meaningful.

Via the process, came a bit of a revelation on just how much of the job really involves "people skills" rather than "tech or research skills".Perhaps it shouldn't be so surprising. I've realized that a good portion of my work has to do with leading or encouraging and modelling how to realize change. I'm also realizing the importance of making that process so transparent that its open to scrutiny by others. I think that is a personal value that was there before but I'm now seeing how important it is in a professional context.

I also had some concerns about my focus just on my work and how this might marginalise any opportunity to incorporate personal development. However, I'm now seeing how almost all of these general categories that I've come up with can be equally important in promoting that personal development as well.

Now off to producing my "personal development" objectives.