Day 2 - it is now Saturday morning and after an extravagant breakfast the academy started with a big bang!
The first session was an introduction to Web 2.0 by Janice, and all though I am familiar with most of the Web 2.0 tools I still enjoyed the refresher of what is out there and how they are applied and used in practice. All though for most of the colleagues this might have been to comprehensive and overwhelming, (too many too soon ;-)), a suggestion is to be a little more selective of what is introduced and to elaborate a little more on the advantages of what the tool can contribute to in the library environment taking into consideration what actually can be accomplished to enhance library services.
The session on Blogs by Antoinette is very familiar to me as I do use blogging in my working environment on a regular basis and started blogging in the early stages when blogging was introduced us, doing the blog for the SA Online User Group at the time and also presented workshops on blogging. I could however assist my colleagues sitting next to me who was completely unfamiliar with blogs and creating them.
All though I blog, twitter and have a profile on LinkedIn I was not familiar with wiki spaces and enjoyed learning about and creating a wiki space. This was another great experience and achievement for me. I do hope that I can introduce and use wiki's in my work environment to the advantage of my colleagues.
Then the shock! Prof Bothma introduced the group to what our rresponsibilities will be for attending, we have to create a wiki with a specific topic per group (5 team players in a group - and this created 4 groups). This assignment will result in a word document and a Power Point Presentation on the last day of the Academy that the group have to present in equally divided time and responsibility. We also individually have to create a blog and diarise our daily activities; this will be also handed in as a word document. These two assignments will be the projects to be completed within the two weeks of attendance. The big one though is the individual research project - to be completed within three months after the academy. We have until June 2011 in which to choose a topic, write a proposal, do the research - write up and hand in.
It was also sad that Ujala had to leave us under difficult circumstances
because a family member of hers was very ill at the time. This must have been a very difficult time for her. Hilda Kriel then attended to the first part of the 'Campbell Leadership Descriptor' tool. The tool is developed to assist in important aspect or characteristics in leadership. The tool touches on six task components of organizational leadership and three personal components of leadership.
Through answering the self-scored assessment you can create your own personal profile and with comparing a personal action plan can be developed and indicate how to take your role as a leader in the right direction.
By also profiling a good and a poor leader it was clear to me that each person or leader will have strengths and Hilda said not to use ‘weaknesses’, but for the life of it I just cannot remember the replacement word now. I do hope the correct word will come back to me. This was then emphasizing the fact that nobody is perfect and this need to be remembered in each situation you find yourself in.
