I’m not sure that “critical thinker” is the best title for this unit. Given the variety of issues and resources addressed, perhaps “critical communicator” would be a better description.
Personal information management, the topic of Thing 14, is in a sense how we keep in touch with our past and future selves. Of the resources featured, Feedly was the most useful, but I wouldn't place it in the same category as most of the tools listed. It does, however, serve as a means of monitoring communications transmitted in the form of authors' blog posts.
Thing 15, evaluating information, focused on how we could contribute to the global resource of Wikipedia—an effort to communicate with others from points separated widely in space and time—by locating and citing authoritative sources. Some popular culture trivia buffs are frequent users of my library's reference service, and Wikipedia is our go-to resource for meeting their information needs.
Our digital footprint, addressed in Thing 16, is essentially how we leave signs about ourselves (whether knowingly and deliberately, or not) for others to read. This type of communication is potentially fraught with serious consequences. In an era when hackers routinely get their hands on corporate customer data and the evolution of computer security mimics the evolution of a prey species trying to keep a step ahead of predators, even following every recommended precaution in Brian Hickey's post is at best a strategy of harm reduction.
And of course, sharing our professional output, Thing 17, is a process of intentionally describing, explaining, and disseminating our intellectual and creative work. This is a weakness of mine, although not due to lack of output! My book reviews for Library Journal are regarded as non-scholarly work (it's a trade journal, and they are edited, not peer reviewed). A well-known Library Thinker disparaged the entirety of my oeuvre (last year, to my face) as "only" book reviews. But the few I have posted to my institutional repository are downloaded occasionally. I need to make the time to edit and post more.
I found this unit particularly thought-provoking and challenging. We all vary our professional messages, depending on our immediate circumstances. But I notice a disparity between my intentional communications at work and those I deliver in the context of other professional activities.
When I volunteer for a professional association, I’m expected to take initiative in communicating. Part of why I’ve been asked to serve in various capacities is because my colleagues from other institutions can count on me to alert them to potential problems, to propose solutions, and to provide historical context for current issues. As for continuing education, in this and in other online programs, both instructors and fellow participants state that I offer something new or useful to the learning community. My experience at work, however, is very different. It’s important to avoid creating surprises there and to move cautiously, slowly, and discreetly. Taking the lead in communication is risky.
Perhaps this difference between my two professional selves contributes to my delay in crafting and organizing professional communications. I’m tempted to use administrative speak and sum up the applications of this unit by saying “I could do better.” The question is: how?
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