CPD Answers

In January, we opened a professional community for supply and temporary teachers on Glow called CPDStepIn (see the CPD Team blog post – CPDStepIn- Start here)

We would now be delighted if others could join us in supporting colleagues who may have difficulty accessing CPD and PRD by the more traditional routes. We are looking for colleagues who can:

• share a CPD resource or a weblink
• host a discussion
• run a CPD session by Glowmeet
• answer questions and give advice
• mentor CPDStepIn colleagues online through some of their PRD and CPD challenges

If you are interested, please contact Susan on stepin@ltscotland.org.uk. There are a couple of rules for joining the group that I hope you will respect:

• you must bring one of the above with you
• be prepared to introduce yourself to the rest of the group

Many thanks!

Most of the CPDShorts come from publicly available sources such LTScotland, TED TV, Journey to Excellence. So why put them in a place on Glow where I have to apply to join a ‘group’? There are a couple of reasons but it’s mainly about encouraging professional learning beyond stage 1 – raising awareness . See CPDScotland’s section on the 4 stages of CPD. To move to stages 2 and 3, I really need the support of colleagues.

To see those colleagues on Glow (using Who’s enrolled on this CPDShort?) you need to have an enrolment system. To that extent, it’s more like a small-scale, face-to-face CPD event. There aren’t many you get to visit anonymously!

In addition, Glow allows us to share thoughts and examples of practice as well as prompts to take your professional learning further in the cpdshort+ section. See the New to CPDShorts section on Glow for more details of this.

Suggestions are always welcome on how to improve collegiate CPD online!

Glow webparts are very handy because you can add tools to any pages you control; my Glow; school sites, CPD Glow groups. As of Feb 2010, LTScotland are putting the finishing touches to web parts for both CPDReflect and CPDFind. You can see a draft version of the CPDReflect webpart on this post. When complete, it will be added to the Glow Virtual Gallery of web parts and full details of use will be posted here and on the CPDReflect users group.

In these early days of building the online community, we have decided to restrict membership to supply and temporary teachers only. This will allow these colleagues the time and space to discuss their own requirements. Thereafter, they may well decide it would be better to open up the community to headteachers, CPD leaders, national professional advisers and the like.

Feel free to register your interest with Susan at stepin@ltscotland.org.uk and we will get back to you if the nature of the membership changes.

You can get a sneak preview of what CPDStepin does on the CPD Team blog

If you got your Glow password from anyone other than a local authority, (eg as a guest of LTScotland on CPDStepin) you will not be able to ’see’ local information such as school and local authority sites.

In this case, you should let your local authority Glow contact know and ask if they can now issue you with a Glow user ID. You can find a list of Glow key contacts in Glow in your area page of LTScotland’s site. If he/she agrees please let LTScotland know. Your new ID details will be merged with your guest ID.

Many of the professional communities on Glow have section called About us. This is designed to help colleagues from all over Scotland to get to know each other and to keep in touch. Here’s the quick version:

1. Make your way to your CPD community of choice (eg CPDCentral)

2. Select the About us tab

3. Scroll to the bottom, select Add picture

4. Complete the short form.

A simple help sheet is available on Glow

Several steps are taken on receipt of your acceptable use agreement:

• the details are verified by our admin staff
• your name is added to a daily list of Glow applicants by RM colleagues (who manage the Glow system on behalf of LTScotland)
• it takes 2 days for the batch system to generate the passwords (one to generate and one to verify)
• the Glow user ID and password is then issued by email to you

I hope you appreciate that we have to be very certain when we are dealing with a network that allows access to our young people.

Yes, there is an online community called CPDStepin. It’s on Glow and (as you can see from the screen shots above) it currently includes the following features:

• a discussion area with chat, forum and web meeting tools
• a place to share resources and links
• advice on PRD and examples of free, online CPD on Glow and beyond
• a place to express views.

We hope shortly to incorporate a feed of teaching posts from MyJobsScotland.com.

How do I join CPDStepin?

If you have a Glow user ID, join CPDStepin here. See this CPDAnswers post if you need help joining a Glow group

If you don’t have a Glow user ID, see this CPDAnswers post for how you can get one.

Most of the CPD funding available is devolved to local authorities. This can, of course, make it difficult for supply teachers and others not currently employed to access CPD.

Your first step should be to join CPDStepin. This is a professional community on Glow for supply, under-employed or unemployed teachers. See this CPDAnswers post for more details.

  CPDFind contains a wide range of CPD opportunities and much of it is free. Just type in a CPD topic into the search box to get started.

Another option is to contact CPD managers from nearby local authorities to see if it is possible to attend CPD events. You will find an up-to-date list of CPD managers on the CPD Team website.

You will find all the CPDChallenges on the library page of the CPDChallenge Glow group. We will also do our best to enter them as opportunities into CPDFind. Just type cpdchall into the CPDFind search box.

Visit the CPDChallenge Glow group …