Jim Buchan of LTScotland’s Glow team moves on today to pastures new with Cisco. He has been a valued source of advice for many aspects of the CPDScotland project. He has that tremendous ability to speak both ‘geek’ and education and an enormous amount of patience with eejits like me who don’t know their ’shibboleths’ from their ‘core IDs’. I know, I have no idea what they mean either! I do know when it came to translating the CPD team’s online visions into a technical reality, Jim was always there to help, for which many thanks!

Good luck with the new venture!

The latest meeting of the CPDReflect usability group met yesterday with colleagues of 3T Productions Ltd who are developing the self-evaluation toolkit for LTScotland and the National CPD Team. As ever, I am indebted to colleagues who come from far and wide and give of their time to provide invaluable feedback on the way the tools are developing.

In preparation for the session, we were able to get a ‘wee shot’ of the 1st version to go online. Although, the functionality is a long way from complete, the potential power of the tool to reflect on professional standards and identify CPD objectives and activities is already apparent.

A key step in realising the power of CPDReflect takes place next week at the CPD Network meeting in Glasgow. This is the group that represents the local authority CPD managers, CPD providers, Universities and other key bodies such as the GTCS. A good part of the meeting will be dedicated to CPDReflect and, in particular, how we can provide relevant and up-to-date examples of practice to bring the professional standards to life. Already colleagues such as Terry Kerr of Highlands Council and Raymond Young of Clackmannanshire have sent me some of their work in this area, which is very much appreciated.

Click to read the Draft paper on the evaluation of the impact of CPD

The attached draft paper from the CPD team considers:

• The importance of self-evaluation to individual teachers, schools and local authorities
• The place of the evaluation of CPD within the overall context of self-evaluation
• Some theory
• The overlap between theory and existing thinking in Scotland
• Five levels of evaluation: how and when applied
• The evaluation of significant inputs made, or of outputs sought only
• Practical strategies in techniques of evaluation, noting those already in use in Scotland
• Some recommendations for action
Please feel free to comment on the blog or directly to the CPD team.

Many thanks

John