Here is this month’s snap stories of personal learning for February 2018.
Every week and every month, I like to review these videos to see what I have been doing every day and it’s a great way to capture all your work and learning – and also to see your progress towards your goals.
I decided to do a monthly reflection this time again simply because I am able to allocate an hour every month to review all these videos and to take notes as to which ones I will use as references in the future – which ones I need to come back to revisit and of course, other ones which are cringe-worthy.
I use these videos as an online portfolio of my work – an online CV if you will.
However, I don’t discern between “professional” or “personal” experiences or identity. Nor do I make these into highly curated, highly edited videos that present a “professional identity” over a “personal identity”. I place value on me being able to express myself in my own way and that usually means, expressing in the moment. This will mean that I’m not made up, I’m in my normal every-day clothes and doing my normal every-day things. This in itself does present challenges because of meeting expectations and perceptions of “professionalism” however, as no one to date has been able to adequately define what this means and it is so subjective anyway, I invite you to make your own decision.
These videos of course, are my own thoughts, rambles and reflections. They may help you to solve a problem, overcome a challenge or give you ideas for your work. If they do, I’d LOVE to hear about it and thrive on feedback and engagement. We can’t all work in vacuums so if you like what you see or learning something new, please share them and let others know the value they provide to you.
Friday 2 February 2018
In this snapstory, I take you behind the scenes of how I create my alter ego, Sharon (Don’t Call Me Shazza) Breaknews, Foreign Correspondent for CNT News. This week she is reporting from Benghazi, in Libya, and I show you how I do the filming and what equipment I use to create the story and backstory. I also talk about a new workshop I created called Twitter for Professional Development.
Monday 5 February 2018
In this snapstory I talk about how I am updating another workshop to teach people (and educators) how to use Snapchat for Showing and Sharing their Work. I have a whole heap of different workshops, webinars and resources on how to use social media for professional learning and networking.
Tuesday 6 February 2018
This is a deep and meaningful snap story where I share how I charge people for my products and services. This has been a question asked of me many times by my social media communities and I address what I do here. I wish there was an easier way as cash flow is the bane of every consultant’s existence, as it is mine. When you work with corporates who have purchasing departments and long times for payment this causes double pains. It’s not one of my favourite subjects but it’s critical and it’s one that creates most personal angst for me and my family.
Friday 9 February 2018
I share my thoughts on a wonderful academic paper I am reading today on the life of consultants and gig workers that touch on the value they place on themselves. It makes such an impact that it starts a Twitter conversation with my network who are in the same position of questioning what value they provide to people when they struggle to find work, be paid, be trusted or ‘fit’ with any particular team, department, organisation or industry anymore. The plight of the neo-generalist is real.
Monday 12 February 2018
Today I walk through a webinar I’m doing for the AITD (Australian Institute for Training and Development) on my favourite subject of Personal Learning Networks. I talk how I provide services to business rather than the public. I also explain my new healthy eating regime. (Don’t get too excited – I’m just on the 5:2 diet).
Tuesday 13 February 2018
Today I spend a day at the Docklands Library because I booked myself into one of their public workshops on Podcasting. Not that I’m going to start a podcast, but it got me outside the house and learning something new. There I met a lady (who I later interviewed for LearningNow TV) who took a year off work to spend her year undertaking Learning Experiences (everything from conferences, courses, workshops, online courses etc) in an effort to find her “thing”. At the workshop, I talk about what we are learning, we also interview other participants and then I do a quick tour of the wonderful library facilities.
Friday 16 February 2018
I’m learning so much being part of the global creative and collaborative project for CNT News Channel (a fake news channel where I play foreign correspondent Shazza Breaknews). In this snap story I share some of the journalism resources I found on the internet that have helped my build her character and create her story and short videos that I filed for CNT.
Monday 19 February 2018
Today I share what I’m learning at Day 1 of Creative Melbourne, a creative and co-created workshop run by Arthur Shelley from Intelligent Answers. These videos will go into a separate blog post unto themselves because I need to reconsider and reflect on key learnings here.
Tuesday 20 February 2018
Today I share my key reflections of Day 1 of Creative Melbourne which was all about Creativity and Play. I share some points where I didn’t feel comfortable however, I see the value of this when it comes to personal learning.
Wednesday 21 February 2018
Today I share reflections of Day 2 of Creative Melbourne which was more about ourselves and how we work in groups to solve problems.
Thursday 22 February 2018
Today I share my key reflections of the last day of Creative Melbourne which has been stretching me to say the least. I look forward to participating in a new venue at the wonderful community and business centre at the Realm in Ringwood.
Friday 23 February 2018
Today I share a huge reflection snap story on the entire Creative Melbourne workshop which made me think about my own work and how I can redesign my workshops to be more connectivist in their approaches and to have more creativity. Creative Melbourne has certainly made an impact on me and it’s something that I would like to share to my network.
Saturday 24 February 2018
I saw Amy Burvall’s tweets about book spine poetry #bookswappoetry and LOVED the idea. So in my pyjamas, I got up from bed and headed over to my book shelves and started making poetry from the spines of the many books I owned. It was such a fun activity that it got my husband involved in it too with lots of laughter and merriment. A wonderful way to start the day thanks to Amy.
Monday 26 February 2018
Today I head back into the Docklands and take some snaps of the local area. It’s a beautiful day and I show you around this part of town with the cow in the tree! Today I interviewed Fiona (the lady who took a year off work to go on her own personal learning journey) and talk about some random thoughts about creativity. This year for me has been already all about CREATIVITY. And guess what? I’m LOVING IT. It has been so LIBERATING for me to just do things that give me pure and utter joy and laughter.
Tuesday 27 February 2018
Things get serious again. I stumble upon Mark Pesce, a futurist, tweet on how he has created some Professional Attention Tokens (backed by a smart contract) using block chain. I’m intrigued by the concept because let’s face it, getting paid is difficult at the best of times when it comes to people asking you for your time, attention and eyeballs. He seems to have struck upon an idea that is worthy of consideration and he tells us that he will be working out loud through the process so that others may do the same. I also talk about how I’m creating the Personal Learning Workshop for Belgium and how I’m trying to make it much more co-created by the participants.
This blog post by Helen Blunden was written in Melbourne, Australia and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
