It became obvious to me fairly quickly, after listening to others and their experiences – as well as reflecting on my own – we do have this tendency to ‘confuse’ reflection with simply describing what was. I’ve certainly been guilty to that myself, ever since I started participating on this unit the concept of what is REAL reflection has become apparent, so if there is anything useful I got out of this unit, it would certainly be on the power of reflection and being honest with one’s own feelings and thoughts as the reflection process takes place – and record that as part of the reflection!

The discussion was very good, and really enjoyed the opportunity to participate – even though I struggled a bit with technology there at the start, but apart from that it was fine. I was glad to hear that the blog idea would be good as part of Assignment 2, so I’ve gone back and checked my spelling and things and that as well as check for evidence of ‘reflection’, which Kath will no doubt look for.

Do I make the most of Endnote? I would like to think I’m! …but I always find myself learning something new, especially playing with setting up my own styles and templates too just recently. I would also like to find better ways

Ok, so what about hard copies or articles etc etc….what’s the filing like for that? I’ve tried using topic and theme categories to file my hardcopy printouts of articles, but I soon found myself feeling a bit overwhelmed and spending too much time trying to decide under what theme I would file each article – particularly when dealing with interdisciplinary stuff, which in a way goes against the very concept of creating silos!!! So, I’ve just simply stuck with one rule….file alphabetically under the first author’s last time – the same way I save their PDF versions electronically in my computer. I created Tabs for each letter of the alphabet, and filed articles accordingly. It has been very easy for me to find articles this way, and also to find duplicates. Not sure how best to improve this system, other than to try to print only what is necessary – articles that I’ll actually use, rather than print straight off in the hope that ‘one day’ I’ll get the chance to read fully….another endless task ….a theme is emerging!

I’ve noticed I’ve become a bit of an articles ‘hoarder’ but very little time is actually spent reading these sources and making notes on each as I go. I often find myself skim reading later on and creating notes, but I’d like to be better organised and write notes as I go – and not too elaborate notes either, just enough for me to be able to recall the most useful information with some reflection thrown in for completeness. I guess the best way to ‘catch up’ with my reading and note taking is do single batches of 2-3 articles a day or so, during over a couple of hours. I really do need to make this a commitment…it probably needs to go into the ‘Quadrant’

As part of that other unit’s recommended reading list, we were given these three books to read:

• Holly, M.L. (2002) Keeping a Professional Journal. Sydney: UNSW Press.
• English, L.M. & Gillen, M. A. (Eds.). (2001) Promoting Journal Writing in Adult Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Moon, J. (1999). Learning Journals: A Handbook for Academics, Students and Professional Development. London: Kogan Page.

I have borrowed all three from the library to have a look at what they have to offer. I must say my favourite was English and Gillen’s book titled “Promoting Journal Writing in Adult Education”. So much so, that I even bought my own copy. Much of what is touched upon in that book is relevant to this unit, so I’m keeping it close and refer to it often as part of this journal writing experience (thanks Kath!).

I noticed that Kath made a comment regarding the integration between EndNote and NVivo as a time-saving software tool application, she wasn’t quite clear based on what I had written – what the advantages of this approach are and how they help with the literature and data analysis. Yes, I agree now having read in retrospective what Kath would’ve read, I agree – wasn’t that clear. I guess what I was trying to say was that I often feel so incredibly overwhelmed by literary hundreds of journal articles and bits of readings that I have entered into my EndNote database, that in order to make a useful analysis and linkage to my own research and results I needed something that would bring it all together for me nicely – and that’s where NVivo comes in, because I can allocate nodes and create literature/results linkages and see them in one page.

Anyway, the feedback has been invaluable and thoroughly enjoyed the learning and insights I’ve gained in doing this assignment – hindsight, as always, is such a wonderful thing).

So far, this system has worked quite well for me. However, as with many things in life, there is always room for improvements. For instance, finding a better more consistent way to enter details on book chapters or authors and book sections within an edited book…I’ve come across some inconsistencies in the way I save these files and how I’ve recorded these in Endnote, and perhaps I need to make myself a rule and stick with it before the number of files grows and then it becomes a chore to try and fix.

Am I making the most out of EndNote? I would like to think I’m! …but I always find myself learning something new, especially playing with setting up my own styles and templates too just recently. Other tips I’d like to work on (in my to do list!), is to add a field entry in Endnote, where I can record whether I have the article in electronic, hardcopy or both (or neither! and needs chasing up).

When it comes to filing hardcopy of literature sources such as journal articles, I’ve tried using topic and theme categories to file my hardcopy printouts of articles, but I soon found myself feeling a bit overwhelmed and spending too much time trying to decide under what theme I would file each article – particularly when dealing with interdisciplinary stuff, which in a way goes against creating silos. So, I’ve just simply stuck with one rule….file alphabetically under the first author’s last time – the same way I save their PDF versions electronically in my computer. I created Tabs for each letter of the alphabet, and filed articles accordingly. It has been very easy fr me to find articles this way, and also to find duplicates. Not sure how best to improve this system, other than to try to print only what is necessary – articles that I’ll actually use, rather than print straight off in the hope that ‘one day’ I’ll get the chance to read fully.

While we’re on the topic of literature – I’ve noticed I’ve become a bit of an articles ‘hoarder’ but very little time is actually spent reading these sources and making notes on each as I go. I often find myself skim reading later on and creating notes, but I’d like to be better organised and write notes as I go – and too elaborate notes either, just enough for me to be able to recall the most useful information with some reflection thrown in for completeness. I guess the best way to ‘catch up’ with my reading and note taking is do single batches of 2-3 articles a day or so, during over a couple of hours. I really do need to make this commitment.

Despite the fact that I’ve used and trialled all sorts of software and tool sand strategies out there, I have very rarely (if ever!) really sat down to think about it is that I like or dislike certain tools, and more importantly why. I wanted to make the theme for this assignment “EFFICIENCY” and so I picked software tools and strategies that I believed would help me improve on that. The next bit was to come up with the criteria for evaluation, which again centred on efficiency – so once I had that focus, it wasn’t that hard at all.

My choices for evaluation included: Master Documents in MS Word, MS OneNote, NVivo and EndNote integration, and the use of Covey’s Quadrant Matrix for prioritising tasks. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, OneNote is a software application that made a rather late debut in the planning process of this assignment, but one which I’m glad I tried again and included it as part of this assignment.

Overall, it has been a fairly straight forward process so far, once I got the criteria sorted out and methodically applied it to all my selected software and strategies for their evaluation. By the way, that criteria involves 4 attributes:

1. Quick learning process – was the learning process for this strategy relatively quick and easily accessible?
2. Ease in applicability – is the strategy or tool easily applied, or does it involve extra dedicated time, concentration and effort?
3. Overall perception of time saved – how did I perceive my time to have been spent learning and applying this strategy? Was it worth the time invested?
4. Transferability – how applicable is this strategy for a range of activities or situations?

Really not long to go now, so best to get the writing done. Thinking bits are done, now to write it.

My first impression on the session, after I managed to fix my microphone, is that it worked really well and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Most importantly, we had a chance to discuss Assignment 1. I had a few ideas as to what software and strategies to try out as part of Assignment 1, but it wasn’t until I heard others’ ideas and tools they were considering using that I began to re-think my choices. For instance, someone mentioned the merits of Microsoft Office OneNote as a virtual notebook and repository of ideas, links, brainstorms, notes, etc etc.  I really liked what I heard, and decided to try again. I had in fact installed OneNote once before as part of the Microsoft Office 2007 upgrade, but after some trialling I just could not warm up to OneNote – until I gave it another go with a new perspective.

Very useful session indeed.

I find that searching a citation index can be useful, because it allows one to follow a trail of thought/idea/argument. When at first I read a paper which I thought was brilliant on face value, and then subscribed to alerts of others citing this paper or via citation indexing, I often found that the initial impression I had of the paper would change – by reading other people’s opinions of it in their papers and publications and trying to understand differences in opinions and experiences and contexts. This has helped me to follow a method of critiquing literature better, because I can give an more balanced account on what has worked and what hasn’t worked and why.

And just as many emails in my inbox are just as many (if not infinitely more!) mailing lists and discussion boards for me to subscribe to all let alone keep up with their content. I have subscribed to a few that are quire strategic for me in terms of networking, and they’re the ones I tend to really make an effort to keep up with and also contribute. I also like RSS feeds, just to browse and glance on what’s out there without having to have emails inundating my inbox (I use Google Reader, so it is like a website full of news and latest content from pages and websites of interest to me – fantastic, thanks a lot Google.

While we’re on the topic of all things internet, I like the idea of creating a research blog, I think it comes across a lot more informal and personal than a structured website. It has a real organic feel, as the research process tends to be (for me anyway). In addition to recording thoughts and experiences, perhaps I would also add (or make explicit in its own section of the blog) the following:

• A “news” section, outlining what’s new in my research or activities, travels etc.
• A publications list (in prep, submitted, corrected proofs, published, etc etc).
• Facilitate feedback from others, such as “leave a comment” feature or the like. Having links and emails that work.
• A section which lists a brief summary of my CV (with links to those institutions or places of employment, associations I belong to, etc etc).

Well, at least that is what I’d like to see doing one day, but best not use this as an excuse for even further procrastination. Simple and effective is the key, nit a piece of art!

There are ways to make the writing process more enjoyable. Purely from a physical comfort point of view, and therefore hopefully assist in making the writing task itself more enjoyable, is to improve my typing efficiency and use more shortcut keys as opposed to the mouse all the time. I’ve printed out a little list of Control+Shift/Alt commands and clipped that to the side of my screen so I can easily refer to it as I type while I get used to ‘memorising’ these commands. Also, would like to download a typing training software (if it exists), and improve my typing so I can use all fingers more effectively and efficiently. The whole writing task would definitely more enjoyable if I can reduce physical tension and pain!

For editing, I like using ‘tracked-changes’ in MSWord, because it date stamps when the comment or changes were made and by whom. Once I’ve done a fair bit of editing and I’m fairly happy with the version (and/or I get sick of looking at the screen!!), then I print it out and have a read on paper with pen in hand to underline or make comments along the border if I need to. I do like the idea suggested on page 254 of the book, which talks about the one-page list of editorial decisions (rules for capitalisation, number formatting, use of hyphens, etc etc)…and sticking with it for the entire document as it is being written and edited – I think that would be a good method for me to create greater efficiency, as I’d be applying the rules first go as opposed having to go through the document post-writing stage and into the editing phase and finding several inconsistencies in the text.