CPD Team

There has been some recent discussion about the usability of Glow. You may have noticed the recent changes in Glow’s interface at national level (see the National Site) or may have been following Andrew Brown’s initiated ‘Glowbetter’ work. While navigation through Glow might be a bit daunting, one of its saving graces for me has always been its ‘hyperlinkability’. It means if you put a resource on Glow, you can copy the shortcut and publish that shortcut anywhere you like, ie add a bit of Glow, or +glow it!

What does this mean? For CPD, +glow usually means ‘now with added collegiality!’. For example, I might recommend a CPD thought-piece (eg Temple Grandin’s TED TV talk – The World needs all kinds of minds). The problem with this approach is it’s an open loop – there is no feedback. I have no idea who follows the link, or what they think about it, or what one thing might they change in their practice as a result of watching and reflecting on the video. But more importantly, numerous colleagues from all over Scotland may be accessing the same video and not realising they have something in common, or know of better examples, or have CPD resources to support teachers of autistic students and so on.

I like the analogy of building escalators not just stairs. By putting that same video onto Glow and asking colleagues to ‘sign up’ you turn a stair into an escalator. Participants get to see the video and also get an instant snapshot of interested colleagues from around Scotland. They can start (or contribute to) a discussion and share practice collegiately.

Try the Temple Grandin +glow version by following the link from CPDFind. Of course, you will need a Glow password for this version.

We have been developing these +glow CPDShort thought-pieces since the turn of the year. A thought-piece doesn’t need to be a video. It could be a discussion paper, an example of student work, a vox pop, results of a survey, etc.

Furthermore, +glow doesn’t just stop at thought-pieces. In future posts I will look at how colleagues +glow lots of different types of CPD; newsletters, face to face events, skills training and more.

Go on, if you are on Glow, start building escalators instead of stairs. You rarely see an escalator marked ‘Out of Order’.  The worst that can happen when you build an escalator is that folk use it as a stair.

So, +glow those thought-pieces and send me a link!

image courtesy of victoriapeckham on Flickr

On Thursday, Neil Stewart of the Glow team and I worked with Pam Dunsmore and East Ayrshire colleagues on the use of CPDFind and Glow for CPD. East Ayrshire (like Aberdeen City, Falkirk and Orkney Islands Council) are now a registered provider on the system and Pam is hoping to use CPDFind as a complement to the course booking system currently offered by Gateway.

We also looked at the structure for local authority CPD that is under development by Fiona Taylor and her team in South Ayrshire and were impressed by its simple but powerful cycle; reflect-identify-practice-impact. Pam will be hosting a session in April where establishment-based CPD leaders will be invited to help us build the online CPD provision for East Ayrshire – just like that!

Neil in the meantime was supporting Audrey Brotherston of the CfE team to develop a simple front-end to national and local CPD materials for Curriculum for Excellence.

On Tuesday, I was invited by Julia Fenby to talk about CPDFind to the participants in the Co-Create project. This project is a collaboration between Scottish Arts and LTScotland’s Glow team. I was there to persuade them of the value of sharing on CPDFind the rich CPD that will no doubt ensue. One of the organisations, TAG Theatre Company, is already a registered provider and I look forward to a few more joining!

Apart from a couple of creative diversions to play CPD Fortunes and sing the CPDFind song, “Just Google CPDFind” you can see much of my contribution on my Prezi site.

This is part of the CPDChallenge series from the National CPD Team

Con Morris invites you to take charge of your own CPD. CPDFind is a CPD search engine from the National CPD Team and LTScotland.
What does it involve?

1. make your way to the CPDFind web site

2. try entering key words that interest you

3. add interesting CPD to your wish-list

4. email your wishlist to your own email address
Supporting CPD opportunities

Just what is CPDFind? CPDFind on CPDAnswers

Visit the CPDChallenge Glow group for more…

I had an excellent discussion this week with Catriona Oates of Scottish CILT. Like many others, Catriona is looking at how national organisations (such as SCILT) can add value to the culture of teacher-led CPD which is proving so valuable. We discussed a lot of examples such as the various TeachMeets and the recent Flashmeet about which Catriona kindly blogged. One of our conclusions was the need to facilitate online communities on Glow to ignite discussion topics and sharing of practice. Our conclusions?

• renewed determination to find, or be facilitators, for Glow groups such as CPDLead and SCILT
• use CPDShorts to focus on some key areas for debate / professional learning
• use CPDFind to bring colleagues to both of these things
• The MFLE community in Scotland (through LTScotland online service) was a leading and early success story for Scotland in the area of online CPD. Time to relight the fire?

CPDFind now features an endorsement feature. The National CPD Team has always maintained that the best people to endorse CPD opportunities are you the educators in Scotland. You can now identify which CPD has influenced your practice the most and give it your own personal, gold star!

How does it work?

Visit the descriptor on CPDFind. Scroll down to the bottom and you will see

Enter your Glow username and password and fill in the short form

A gold star (representing your endorsement) will appear on the bottom of the endorsement.

Later visitors to this opportunity will be able to select your gold star and read your endorsement. Each gold star represents one endorsement

Please note this is not anonymous rating like some other web sites. CPD can only be endorsed by named educators on Glow. This way you can be sure of its veracity and even start to identify colleagues who have the same interests as you.

I am grateful to Graham, Ralph and Gayle of LTScotland who made this feature a possibility. Like all our offerings we would very much welcome your comments.

I spent this morning in the company of colleagues from the Highland Council (mainly Dave McCartney, Terry Kerr (CPD manager) and Louise Jones) looking at the various CPD offerings on the Highland Virtual Learning Centre and highland.gov web sites. We focussed on how national CPD tools can enhance the already forward-thinking, online practice in Highland. Specifically:

• a trial of how CPDReflect could be used to exemplify and deepen understanding of the Learning, Teaching and Assessment Framework. This has recently been substantially revised for CfE
• how Glow and CPDShorts could be used to bring collegiate CPD to existing excellent awareness raising CPD on the Highland toolkit and framework
• how CPDFind could be further used to promote all types of CPD in Highland Council
• how the excellent CPD sessions from the recent CfE Showcase could be revisited through regular GlowMeet events over the coming session

I look forward to going back up in December to help take these innovative ideas forward.

I have just had a smashing (not to say privileged) few days visiting the CPD festivals in Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, Orkney Islands Council and Highlands Council.

One striking feature of all 3 events was the decreasing reliance on external CPD providers and the increase in local, practitioner-led CPD. For much of the time, I was ‘manning’ a table with a rolling display and sets of the eminently collectable CPD postcards but I also managed to fit in some visits to keynotes and seminars. I had a number of rewarding conversations as a result. Here are just some of them:

• with a number of supply teachers including Lorena (see la historia de Lorena)
• with Margaret Alcorn and Ian Smith (the latter of Learning Unlimited) on the links between professional learning communities and Learning Rounds
• with Carol McManus of Orkney Islands Council on how CPDFind can be improved to support local authority CPD
• with Neil Stewart of the Glow team on how we can make more use of CPDFind to raise awareness of the growing amount of CPD using and on Glow
• with Morag MacDonald of Storlann and how tools such as Glow and CPDFind can support their valuable work in Gaelic education
• with Eddie Broadley (area adviser at LTScotland) on how CPDReflect might be used to support development of curriculum maps
• with senior Highland Council colleagues on how CPDReflect might be used to exemplify their Learning Teaching and Assessment Policy

Many thanks to all for their warm welcomes and particularly to Donald MacLeod, Carol McManus and Terry Kerr of the CPD Network.

 Thank you very much to the seventeen local authorities who responded to a request for information about how they managed CPD for supply teachers. Some points to emerge:

• There is a wide variation in practice across the country. Almost all responding LAs offer places on locally organised courses to those teachers on the supply list. There are no instances of teachers being paid to attend these other than those employed in schools on mid to long term contracts
• All of the Councils who responded were continuing to administer supply from within the Council
• Seven of the 17 respondents – about 45% – offer tailored CPD for their supply teachers. In a few cases these are extensive and include network meetings, established Glow Groups etc.
• A small number of the authorities expressed their concern that this was a group whose development needs were not being well met
• One problem seems to be a discrepancy between the number of teachers on the supply list and the number who are “active” – eg available for work. Many respondents suggested that they had a large number of inactive teachers, or those who had very limiting conditions for accepting supply work. In one authority more than 750 secondary teachers were on the supply list but the “core” was about 50.
• The issue of PRD for supply teachers is largely unresolved except for those on long term contracts. This means that there are some issues around their readiness to deliver curricular reform.

The 2006 CPD Team paper CPD for Supply Teachers is still largely relevant and could be updated easily if the network felt that was helpful. There are currently no CPD opportunties for supply teachers on CPDFind. If you have a good programme for returning or supply teachers this might be a good place to find new participants.

The team would be happy to put you in touch with each other if CPD for Supply Teachers is an issue that you want to move forward on, or indeed we would happily convene a working party if you felt that would be helpful.

I am very grateful to colleagues in Stirling who are willing to share a copy of their current comprehensive and high-quality “Temporary Teachers’ Staff Development Programme”, and their LNCT agreement on Supply Teachers. Let us know if you’d like a copy.

Thank you to colleagues from Scottish Government, the latest to suffer!

Here is the short version of the updated links.

The Prezi , CPDReflect, CPDFind,  Journey to Excellence from HMIE, LeadMeet, Learning Rounds, Twitter

And yet more if you are still awake!

Influences

Collegiality and impact – Richard Elmore’s work is highlighted here

Types of CPD – See a previous blog post on this topic

To find out more about the 4-stage model of CPD, read Margaret Alcorn’s paper on Teachers for Excellence 

Seen it, done it

Unconference links - TeachMeet home page, LeadMeet, GregMeet

CPD Team / LTScotland CPD tools and sites

For general CPD information – try CPDScotland

For specific CPD opportunities, try CPDFind

Find out more about CPDReflect here or try it yourself here

To get regular CPD updates subscribe to the CPD team email bulletin

Journey to Excellence from HMIE

Social networking

Read and comment on Ollie Bray’s blog

Some CPD from CPDFind on Social Networking

Follow Margaret Alcorn @cpdc or Con Morris http://twitter.com/cpdscotsman or even CPDFind http://twitter.com/cpdfound)!

Glow CPD links

Find out about Glow in your part of Scotland

Some CPD from CPDFind on Glow

CPDCentral, CPDLead, Staffroom, CPD Challenges, CPDShort from Aberdeenshire

Some more fun stuff for CPD sessions

Random name picker (aka the ‘CPD Puggy’) from @russeltarr

Random Activity Generator from @johndavitt