CPD Team

                                    Calling all CPD coordinators in Scottish schools!

Make a point of clearing your diary for this year’s SLF (September 23 and 24 2009). This year the National CPD Team will be offering a number of CPD opportunities just for you! Makes a nice change, eh?

They include:

• a drop-in facility for CPD coordinators, the CPD Lounge. Get away from the crowds, sit down, put your feet up, chat to fellow coordinators and members of the CPD Team and enjoy a cup of tea on us!
• sharing practice events in the CPD Lounge led by CPD coordinators and CPD Team members
• the launch of CPDLead, an online professional community for CPD leaders
• a social event on the late Wednesday afternoon
• recommended seminars if you are still swithering

If you can’t make it in person, then there will be live interaction from the CPD Lounge on Glow.

All you have to do is email slfcpd@cosla.gov.uk to express an interest, we’ll do the rest! Look forward to seeing you there in person or online!

A group of Scottish educators are on an international study visit to Hong Kong. You can keep up to date with their experiences on the Andrea Reid’s blog at http://scipdhongkongvisit2009.wordpress.com/. Highlight for me so far is the news that in Hong Kong the best teachers have their names plastered on the back of buses!

TeachMeet Student Edition is the first TeachMeet specifically designed for student teachers and teachers in their probationary year. TeachMeet is a community-organised “unconference” which was proposed by David Muir at Strathclyde University and planned by keen and willing members of the Scottish teaching community. The event is currently listed on the GTCS probationer website .

TeachMeets are an opportunity to give a presentation, either 7 minutes or 2 minutes in length about anything you want to talk about, from a great website you’ve used in your class, to a fantastic lesson you led; from an inspiring project you did in your class to a useful way of displaying your class’s work; nothing is too big or too small to talk about at TeachMeet – and everyone there, from oldest to youngest wants to hear what you have to say: because that’s why they’re there!

Regular attendees at these events consider TeachMeets to be some of the best CPD available and delivered by people who know what they’re talking about – teachers! You can come along and present if you want, but you’re equally welcome to come along, listen and be inspired. Even if you can’t make it to the event itself, you can join in online using FlashMeeting video-conferencing technology. You can even follow the event on Twitter! (#tmse09 for you Twitter-users). (NB: Don’t be alarmed if you’re not familiar with the techie terminology – you will be when you’re done!)

All that stuff you’re not allowed to do in meetings – tap away on your laptop, talk to the person next to you, have a beer – is not only allowed at a TeachMeet, it’s actively encouraged. TeachMeets recognise that good CPD is learning from each other, and helps deliver that. Best of all it’s free? As is the beer and the grub. Try it out, you won’t be disappointed. Sign up, or get further details at http://teachmeet.pbworks.com/TeachMeetSE09

If you are happy to share ideas with other teachers; TeachMeet is for you.

If you want to hear colleagues inspire you with new ideas; TeachMeet is for you.

If you want to meet fellow student or probationer  teachers to chat and make new friends; TeachMeet is for you.

When and where?

Tuesday 9th June 2009

6:00pm to 8:00pm

University of Strathclyde – Room MCC3 in the McCance Building, 16 Richmond Street, Glasgow, G1 1XQ

Latest News

All local authorities have been invited to nominate two delegates for this year’s Summer School in Edinburgh. Invitations have also gone out to teacher associations, universities, etc.

The closing date for nominations was last week, so if you haven’t heard and know just the very person, let your Director/Head of Service know. Unclaimed places will be allocated to someone on our very long waiting list!

Check out the programme at the Summer School website

Stirling Management Centre : Friday 11th September      

In the attached letter you will find details of how to reserve a place at this year’s SELMAS Conference. We expect to be fully sold out so book now to make sure you don’t miss the Leadership Conference of the year.

Selmas 09

LTScotland are very pleased to launch LTS on iTunes U today, a dedicated area within the iTunes Store featuring free educational content.

The LTS site has been developed using Apple’s iTunes technology and is for teachers, early years practitioners and other users to easily access digital video resources to support their professional development.

Today’s launch represents the first time that a 3-18 education provider from outside North America has appeared on iTunes U.

This is the start of an ongoing project and the sections on the LTS  iTunes U site will populate as they develop more video and audio content to help educators get to grips with the new curriculum.

This is a cross post from the team’s CPDAnswers blog as it may be of general interest

CPDFind is a national database of CPD opportunities which has been developed as part of the collaboration between the National CPD Team and LTScotland. The opportunities (not just courses!) come from a wide range of providers including LTScotland teams, HMIE, SQA, private providers and universities. In addition, we are seeing some local authorities (eg Aberdeen City) using CPDFind to advertise their local CPD to a wider audience.

You might be interested in CPDFind for a number of reasons:

• your own professional development (just type a keyword into the CPDFind search box)
• to support your colleagues in their professional development
• to promote CPD that you deliver or enable.

All the providers on the system have gone through a registration process. If you are interested, contact cpdregister@ltscotland.org.uk

There are plans to further develop CPDFind in the coming year, including:

• an endorsement feature for Glow users of CPDFind
• local versions for both authorities and school establishments

CPDFind is part of the CPDScotland project, led by Con Morris, which also includes:

• promoting Glow for CPD purposes
• gathering good CPD practice using the CPD Team blog
• the CPD website
• a PRD toolkit called CPDReflect

This is a guest post from Tina Stevens of the Glow team

On Thursday 30 April Neil Winton – PT English at Perth Academy – delivered a fantastic masterclass on the use of WIKIs in the classroom. The session was packed full of practical hints like which WIKI provider was best for educators and how to use the ways WIKIs log changes to track pupil work. Teachers from all over the country logged in to watch and ask questions and the feedback was extremely positive, with one participant deciding she was going to use WIKIs with her class straight away as she had found the session, ‘interesting and inspiring’.
The accompanying Powerpoint and resources for this session can be found in the English teachers’ Glow group and a copy of the session itself will also be available there very soon.
Details of the English teachers’ group masterclass for May will be released very soon. Watch this space!

Irene Ross, Learning and Teaching Officer in Moray, is at the forefront of supporting teachers to develop their questioning techniques. She is passionate about the benefits of the process and has supplied the following Shirley Clarke quote which sums up her thinking:

‘Studies about teacher questioning over the years have revealed that teachers mainly ask recall or social and managerial questions. These are, of course, the easier questions to ask, but have not challenged our children so that their understanding is furthered and deepened.

Although improving teacher questions is a continual and difficult process, it is an area of formative assessment which can result in relatively rapid, positive change in the classroom.’

( Shirley Clarke, 2005)

The attached document explores the questions that can be used to promote higher order thinking and was devised by a group of Learning and Teaching Officers in Moray as part of a policy document on Higher Order Thinking.

questioning-to-promote-higher-order-thinking1.doc

I took part in a very effective bit of CPD last night with educators from Iowa, England, South Africa, and all parts of Scotland. It was on the subject of CPD for Additional Support Needs and was run by David Noble (aka on Twitter as @parslad) of the Access Network. The event featured 7 x 7 minute contributions by educators including my own on online CPD tools.

It used a webconference technology very similar to our own Glowmeet called Flashmeeting and you can access a replay of the event here if you are interested.

And the title of this post? That comes from Eddie Broadley. I made the mistake this morning of proudly announcing to the LTScotland office “I did my first Flashmeet last night?” “Oh aye!” says Eddie. “Did the polis catch you?”