Professional Practise Portfolio

This degree has been a key part of my life for the last three years and as I approach the end I can't help but look back at all of my achievements for the duration of the program. This blog holds all of course work, reflection and thoughts on the RMIT Information and Knowledge Management Program.

All posts can be accessed through the use of the links below by selecting the correct semester and then the class which you would like to view the course work for. I have not done a complete reflection on each individual class but for each semester instead. I have detailed my goals for each semester, my grades (high, low, average) and a brief description of what I thought of the classes for that semester.


Year 1
My first year at university was hard, I was not used to all of the different changes in learning style to that of High School and just finding my way around all of the buildings and class rooms.
Semester 1
Semester 2

Year 2
In my second year at RMIT I was much more confident at my ability to find my way around the different classes and to pass all of my classes. As for most students my second year involved more play and less study as I was more relaxed and had made friends in my first year. This did not stop my from acheiving my goals and surviving another year of university.
Semester 1
Semester 2

Year 3
My third and final year has been a difficult one to complete. I have been finding it hard to keep motivated to complete work to my usual standard and attend classes. However, I still managed to receive high grades for my first semester of my last year and have yet to finish my final Semester.
Semester 1
Semester 2

After much thought and consideration I have decided that I would like to pursue further study once I have completed my degree. Depending on what I am offered next year I may pursue my honours for this program or delve into a Diploma of Education at Monash University. I feel that this will improve my employability in the future and even though this degree has been hard at times I do enjoy to learn and study.

Please enjoy browseing through and feel free to comment.

The Intelligent Organisation

For the Intelligent Organisation I completed the following assignments:

Assignment 1

Assignment 2

Reflections

These assignments were to teach me about the organisation of information in a business setting, preparing me for the business world and showing me some of the other avenues I could take in my career. This was a great course to give me information on training staff and what people need from their training sessions. I found through this course that people at my previous work place were not happy with the amount of training that they had received and that it had not been delivered in a style that was very beneficial to their learning experience.
I also had a look into some of the new technologies that were coming out at the time, namely the iphone which is very popular now. This assignment was done as a group assignment which once again added to my team management skills and work distribution. I also had to complete a presentation again, which added to my confidence in public speaking, and it was interesting to see what the other groups had to say.

For this course I received a DI.

Professional Practise

This is the class that I am writing this blog for, so I can't really link many assignments for the class. This first assignment for the class was to write job letters and resumes. I found this to be an interesting part of the course; as we are getting to the end of our degree and most of the students will be moving out into the work force, knowledge of applying and finding work can be invaluable. As I have already found a position in a library local to my home I did not find this to be as important to me as it might be for some. I also had already completed a course, "Careers that work" which had already covered the basics of resume and letter writing as well as practise concerning the interview process.
What I found most interesting about this assignment was the future career plan. It got me thinking about where I am heading and what I want to do after university. I had not thought about this is great length before, this project forced me to map out my plans and to really think about where I wanted to be in 5 years.

The next was to set up a presentation done by a speaker from outside of the RMIT school. This was relitivly easy as we had a member in our group who had a contact that would be able to speak on a relivant topic "copy right". We organised a room and refreashments for the speaker/guests and it all ran very smoothly.

The last assignment is this blog. I have found  it to be an interesting and sometimes tedious task to go back over classes that I never wanted to think about again (Relational Database Design and Development) and classes that I enjoyed and got a lot out of (Industry Application Project). During this experience I have found that I have changed a lot since I first started this program in 2007. I have grown, learnt and experienceed much during this program and this assignment has helped me to remember and given me a chance to reflect.

Inquiry Letter

Cover Letter

Resume

Career Plan

Research Project

For Research Project it involves the creation of one major assignment throughout the duration of the semester. For this assignment I found it to be like writing a minor thesis. I thought that when I first started to do my research and write the research paper that I would not be able to make it to the 6000 word limit, by the time it came to hand in my finished paper I found that I had gone over the word limit by 1000 words and still had more I could write about. I ahd to cut myself short in the end to be able to hand it in on time and so that it did not become a 10,000 word research paper.

This class has taught me that you never know what may happen when writing a research paper, I was scared that I would not have enough to write about when I first started but in the end it turned out that the oppisite happened. I also thought in the begining that I would find the work to be boring and tedious, when in fact I enjoyed the research and would happily continue with my reading and findings. From this class it has helped me in thinking about ideas for research for if I continue on to do honours and of research that I might consider doing in my own time. At the begining of my degree I would not have been able to complete a task this big, I was not ready and would have had no idea where to start or what to write, now I ahve had a  lot of practise and can approach such a task with confidence.

Project Proposal

Literature/methodology Report

Survey

Accounting

As accounting is one of the business courses, and they rely more on the results from exams and not assignments I only have one assignment for this class. The other forms of assessment are a mid semester test, completed with a 15/20 and the final exam.


Assignment 1

Records Management and Archive Administration

For this class I had to complete 4 different assessment tasks, they were a short essay on what a record is, a report on the Water Safety Corporation, a group assignment creating an archival management plan, and a presentation on the plan.

Tihsi class helped me with remembering what I had learnt in other classes regarding records and the need for a correct archiving and records management system.The creation of a records and archival management plan was something entirly new to me. I had never thad to create one before and I think that it is a very important part of the course. Records and information managment is what this program is about and all students should be able to tell which records are vital to the companies survival and how all records should be managed on a day to day basis and during a disaster.

The lecture slides and assignment sheets made it easier to figure out the layout for the records management and disaster recovery plan. The Classes were a bit long, three hours was not needed to cover all of the material and there was some over lap in the content of some lectures from previous courses, such as content management and knowledge management technologies.

Overall the most interesting and important parts from this course was learning how to create a disaster recovery plan and discover the vital records within a company.
I recieved a HD for this course.
Assignment 1

Assignment 2

Assignment 3 part 1

Assignment 3 part 2

Assignment 4 - presentation

3 week Industrial Placement 2

This was my second industrial placement which was at the Casey-Cardinia Library Corporation. I completed this placement over the course of the semester as I could not do it during the university holidays. This course was a great introduction to the world of the public library. As my first placement was in a high school library it was a very different setting than a public library in the outer suburbs.
I had Marika as my supervisor, she was very helpful in telling me about the industry and all of the extra services that the casey-cardinia library corporation provides to their local community.

The assignments for this course helped me to gain a better insight into the business/library that i was working for. It allowed me to see what technology they use for communication and who is in charge of the corporation. The diary was a good way to check on my progress and helped with looking back at my achievements during my time with the Casey-Cardinia Library Corporation as was the professional development plan. The plan ensured that I met all of my learning goals and and stayed focused during my time at placement.

For this course there was the following assignments:

Professional Development Plan Part 1

Professional Development Plan Part 2

Diary

Report