I had the privilege of talking to CPD coordinators in Edinburgh City Council and East Dunbartonshire Council. I had 10 minutes to give them the national picture on online CPD, so we didn’t stop to take notes!  I promised the links and here they are!

• For more information on the national CPD picture - CPDScotland 
• To find out about the national intranet - Glow
• The reflective toolkit is due in autumn and you can get information here - CPDReflect
• please sign up to the CPD update
• and, and … pick of the CPD pops! - CPDFind.

Oh did I mention signing up for the CPD update ?

PS The soundtrack for this presentation is ‘At the Sign of Swinging Cymbal’ - the theme tune for Pick of the Pops. You’ll need to provide that yourself!

The Council’s Code of Professionalism and Conduct is launched today, 27 May, by Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning.  Within GTC Scotland’s wider framework of standards, this Code and commentary states not only to the profession but also to members of the public, the standard of conduct and competence expected of registered teachers.The Code does not set out to address every possible circumstance in which teachers might find themselves.  It is however, intended that teachers are mindful of the Code in relation to the judgements which they will be called upon to make in situations which may occur both within and outwith the classroom.

More details on the GTC Scotland web site

This is a guest post on behalf of our colleagues in the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTC Scotland) 

GTC Scotland announces that the current Accreditation Route, organised by GTC Scotland will close for application from 31 August 2008. All teachers who have registered with GTC Scotland before this date will have two years to complete their submission and a further three years should a re-submission be required. More information on the GTCS web site

CPDFind, the ‘CPD Search Engine’ from LTScotland and the National CPD Team, passed the magical 1000 opportunity mark recently. In one short year (it went live in May 2007), it has grown from nothing to being an important tool for educators who are looking for CPD.

The 1000th opportunity was entered by Vetaid,  Vetaid is a member of the IDEAS forum and  works with agricultural communities in east Africa who depend on animals for their survival and provide CPD opportunities in global education as part of their work. A suitable token of our appreciation will be winging its way to Sarah Brown, the CPD manager for Vetaid as soon as possible.

The CPD Team would like to thank all the CPD providers on the register, and colleagues at LTScotland and Successful Steps for their hard work in achieving this target.

Onwards to 10,000!

I picked the best day ever to go and visit Donald MacLeod, the CPD manager of Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, in Stornoway. The flights there and back were in perfect weather and I could see right across Scotland from Fort William to Inverness.

I spent a small part of the day talking to the Eilean Siar probationers about online CPD but mainly it was talking with Donald about various CPD issues including how best to share among the CPD network, how to promote CPD in, and about, Gaelic and how come the best teachers are often mavericks (or positive deviants as Graham Thomson of SCSSA dubs them!)

In the afternoon, Donald had a meeting at Sgoil Uig, and the drive across Lewis was wonderful (hence the picture above).

I realise that not everyone is as privileged as me to share with CPD people right across Scotland and I came away even more determined to make Glow a place where we can readily share online.

Donald wanted to know about other authorities’ probationer arrangements. Please feel free to leave a comment here or join the discussion on CPDCentral.

The National site on Glow now has a central, professional community for CPD, called (what else CPDCentral?), where you can get CPD news, see feeds from CPDFind, share resources and discuss various CPD issues. When I say ‘you can’, it’s in a very embryonic state at the moment, but we are getting there!

To access the site you need a Glow account, I’m afraid. If you have one, click here and you will be prompted on how to join the community.

If you don’t have a Glow account yet, find out where your local authority is in its engagement with Glow. There may well be a user ID and password waiting for you!

We are still hopeful of arranging Glow guest access for members of the CPD network, so if you are interested, keep checking this blog.

I am very grateful to Andrew Brown (of the Glow team) who was great in helping me design the structure and get it going.

Let’s get it populated, as they say in the web world!

I spent today with Aidan Melling of NCSL  (the National College for School Leadership) at their very impressive Nottingham centre. The reason for getting together was sharing where we are with online CPD.

NCSL has an impressive online CPD pedigree going back to the Talking Heads online community. Their website (www.ncsl.org.uk) gets 100,000 plus visitors per month and hosts a variety of CPD and leadership resources, tools and programmes. Much of it is on public view but some of it is only available if you are subscribed to one of their own programmes.

Available to all (follow the links and see if you are as impressed as I am!)

Information on their blended programmes for:

• Mid-level leaders, aspiring, new and experienced headteachers and school business managers
• An impressive research publications area featuring works by a wide variety of experts (some of them weel-kent in Scotland like Alma Harris!)
• Stand-alone sets of resources on subjects like succession planning, leadership where Every Child Matters, on safer recruitment and a smashing e-learning facilitation toolkit (this one is particularly timely for all of us planning professional communities on Glow!)

Other resources made available through NCSL Learning Gateway to registered users are equally interesting, including:

• a 360 degree diagnostic tool which guides participants to tailor NCSL programmes appropriately
• a Virtual School where you get to make leadership decisions (or not!) and see their effects
• Talk2Learn (a Talking Heads type forum but no longer restricted to just head teachers)
• a Leadership Library with a wide range of resources from Harvard Business School and Ashridge Virtual Learning resource centre

As with the visit to the Highland Council, I intend to make sure at least some of these resources are captured on CPDFind.

In return, I shared with Aidan our work in Scotland on CPDScotland,  CPDFind,  CPDReflect and Glow.