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Hello and welcome to my Personal Padlet for the People Information and Communication module! Here I will be documenting my weekly reflections of everything about this module.

I will discuss how I found the weekly readings, the synchronous classes, contributions to the class Padlet, E-guests, asynchronous classes and activities. I will provide an honest and accurate account of my experience of this module and look forward to seeing how my learning horizons expand :)

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This week was my first time contributing to the group Padlet and sharing my thoughts on the readings. I found it difficult to condense all that I had taken from the four chapters and put it into a succinct comment, I ended up mostly sharing my insights from just one of the chapters. I feared that my comment would have been too long if I included all my thoughts, and I did not want to overwhelm the seminar leaders for Week 2 - making a lesson plan based on comments from everybody must be a challenge, and an even tougher one if every comment was very bulky and content heavy. I think the difficulty in sharing my thoughts efficiently stems from the fact that I am not familiar with this style of discussion, typically I would share my thoughts verbally in a conversation with someone where necessary information would come out as needed. However, I am going to have to learn how to prioritise and condense my thoughts on the readings. This class is giving me a great opportunity to learn how to do so, and I think I will begin to see an improvement over time. I think it is still a good starting point for my development of this skill. I am going to use my experience to enhance and improve techniques of information sharing.

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I have decided to start writing my reflections after the seminars each week so that the contributions I make within them and the discussions we have can be referenced here. Unfortunately this means I will not be reflecting on week 2s seminar, although I found the content and delivery to be very enjoyable.

This week I found myself in a similar situation to last week, in which I struggled to communicate all of my thoughts from both readings into one contribution on the group Padlet. It feels frustrating that I cannot melt all of my thoughts into an efficient paragraph, but I hope to get better over time. It was fun to discuss information behaviour in the context of leisure activities - learning about other peoples hobbies and interests and exploring how information behaviour can exist within every aspect of everyday life was fascinating.

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This weeks readings and seminar content were of immense interest to me. At the beginning of this module I believed I understood the idea of information behaviour and why it should be studied - but the how of studying it unsettled me. I have an undergraduate degree in Applied Psychology, and much of what I learned centred on the methodologies of research and how to research things correctly in the context of the study of human behaviour not being acknowledged as a science. Validity, reliability and replicability were all crucial factors of much of the methodologies I studied, and observation behaviour was not something I was too sold on in the context of this module. However, after reading Wästerfors chapter and watching the WIRED FBI video, I am now more confident in conducting the unobtrusive observation study. The value of the simple act of observing has not been lost on me and I am looking forward to beginning.

Additionally, Loise Macharia's talk was very beneficial in hearing directly from someone conducting research on information behaviour. Real life applications and the nuances of it really sparked an interest in this area for me.

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Unfortunately, I was quite unwell this week and as such I failed to contribute to the class Padlet. Although I read both Greifeneder et. al. and Fisher et. al., I found it very hard to articulate my thoughts on the content and the volume of messages coming through due to it being an asynchronous week were overwhelming for my state. Although in theory the change of pace in lecture style seems intriguing and different, I believe I would have enjoyed a lecture this week while I was not too under the weather so that I could communicate my thoughts through speech as opposed to text. I feel as though text can be constraining, and I enjoy the fluidity of the nature of this module as it allows for both an academic-esque paragraph of thoughts as well as futher elaboration during class hours. Hopefully for our next asynchronous week I am more able-bodied and -minded!

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Week 6 - Information and Communication Where We Work

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Week 6 - Information and Communication Where We Work

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This week I was a seminar leader alongside another classmate of mine. As such, I conducted more reading than I would on typical weeks - I wanted to be well informed about the subject in order to guide healthy discussion. It was interesting to be on the giving end of these seminars after attending the last few - it is a vastly different learning experience. Coming up with questions that would stimulate conversation among my classmates was a tougher challenge than I had anticipated, as it was difficult to imagine how much or how little people would have to say on the matter. I read through my classmates' contributions on the Padlet more thoroughly this week, as I wanted to ensure people would be comfortable sharing their thoughts and I wanted to see what people were most interested in. Overall I think the seminar went well, I believe my fellow seminar leader and I did well at guiding discussion while not getting to involved ourselves. We were not too shaken by silences during the class and would provide prompts and follow ups to drive discussion.

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Week 7 - Information and Communication in Unique Contexts

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Week 7 - Information and Communication in Unique Contexts

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This week was disaster week. I have always had a strange fascination with disaster movies and phenomena such as tsunamis and earthquakes, however learning about human information behaviour in these contexts has opened my mind about the complexities of these disasters beyond mere fascination! Even in contexts in which disasters happen almost every day - such as for the air ambulance workers in London - information behaviours can be critical to the situation. I never considered how calm and composed these workers need to remain in order to communicate as efficiently as possible with all members of their teams. This composure under pressure must be frightening but it is imperative to the survival and wellbeing of patients.

Jude Pullen visited our lecture this week and his insights on his work were thoroughly enjoyable. His sense of creativity and how that can result in genius solutions for problems was very inspiring.

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This week was very engaging for me and felt so refreshing in the midst of other lecture-style classes. The notion of a field trip and the excitement it inspires is something I had forgotten, and getting to apply what I have been learning in this module in a real life context was very educational. For my field trip, I chose the Burren Ailwee Caves experience in Co. Clare. The Ailwee caves are a large cave system in the Burren, and visitors are welcome to visit and take part in a guided tour of the caves. This experience was very engaging, especially with my knowledge of information behaviour to date. I considered the different methods of information sharing they supplied during the course of the guided tour - the verbal storytelling, the visual demonstrations they had, the pieces of fossilised bone they had on display with brief descriptions of them. Overall it was a thrilling experience and I do not think I would have appreciated it in the same capacity without my knowledge of information behaviour.

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Week 9: Managing Workplace Information and Communication

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Week 9: Managing Workplace Information and Communication

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This week we discussed information in the workplace, similar to Week 6 - although this time I was not a seminar leader. Alan Lund was a guest speaker this week and hearing his experiences from his workplace was very engaging, especially in the context of positioning theory which we were assigned to read about this week. As a part-time worker myself, it was interesting to read about positioning theory and consider the roles and duties I have been assigned throughout my time there. The fluidity of these positions is not lost on me, either - although my coworker and I have the same job description, sometimes we will be assigned different tasks based on our personalities and natural tendencies.

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Week 10: The Evolving Area of Human Interaction & Our Professional Commitment

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Week 10: The Evolving Area of Human Interaction & Our Professional Commitment

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It was very interesting to learn about everyone's desired and current careers and professions this week. It was fun to consider all the past readings we had been assigned and to think of them in a context beyond purely academic - thinking about how they can apply to our professions was helpful in that it solidified the helpfulness of this module as a whole. I am interested in the video game industry and information behaviour within this context is plentiful, and I believe my participation in this module will help me advance my career further.

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Week 11: Translating Observed Patterns of Behaviour into Models

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Week 11: Translating Observed Patterns of Behaviour into Models

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This week we were tasked with preparing models based on models we have been studying. The flexibility of these models is very interesting to consider when creating a model as opposed to learning about it. The importance of feedback in a model was emphasised and in creating a model, it was easier to see where some older models failed to be used in certain scenarios. Seeing behaviours such as "walking past someone on a street" being broken down into many parts involved in information behaviour was very informative, and I really liked the creative aspect of the task for this week that served to expand my knowledge.

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This week was presentation week and unfortunately I was unable to attend the full duration of this lecture. This week involved us summarising our projects in 1 minute - I hadn't expected the time to go as fast as it did. It was difficult explaining everything I had wanted to say in just one minute, and from the other presentation I watched it seemed it was going to be a common thing. Receiving feedback and comments on my report topic was also very helpful, it broadened my view on the report more than I had been expecting. This module has been a wonderful learning experience and I am delighted to have taken it.