I was invited by Gillian Brydson to talk to 2 groups of colleagues from Dumfries and Galloway yesterday. In the morning, it was the PRI strategy group who (among other things) are currently reviewing the local PRI process. As always I learned a wee bit (eg their excellent response to an authority-wide online survey using Survey Monkey). It was good to see sharing of practice featured in the CPD network and the influence of the team’s efforts, especially the focus on the Standards.

I demoed CPDReflect and they are keen to adopt with one or more groups. Importantly, the group are also keen to incorporate CPDReflect ‘mentions’ into their PRI guidelines so that it is seen as a clear alternative to the paper process.

In the afternoon, I spoke to secondary CPD coordinators and (among other things) demoed CPDReflect again. One head teacher commented that it was a valuable addition to their PRD toolkit. “It might not suit all but some will take to it”

Next on their agenda, interestingly, was the Child Protection officer who outlined the compulsory Tier 1 ‘training’ on CPD which has to take place every 3 years. It would be interesting to offer online CPD in that area! Any one got some thoughts on that?

If you are visiting from Dumfries and Galloway, you will find the various links on the festival post.

 Many thanks to Gillian and her colleagues for their hospitality and opportunity to learn with them.

And the title of this post? We had a laugh that we could rename the review process to the above if we used the innovative feature in CPDReflect?

I was delighted to be invited by Kirsty Robertson, CPD manager for East Lothian, to help in the launch of their “1st steps in Leadership” programme. Kirsty is very keen that participants (and their coaches and mentors) use elements of the Standard for Headship to exemplify leadership in action. It does mean that CPDReflect will be used in earnest during this programme and I look forward to going back to Musselburgh to help participants out. Also very refreshing to see is that the group will be using a Glow group to help in the collaboration process!

I have spent many an enjoyable afternoon and evening with colleagues around Scotland and beyond.  I always promise the participants a copy of the presentation and a note of the online CPD links we explore in each session.

Here is the presentation

And here are the links

CPDFind, CPDReflect summary, CPDScotland, CPDConfer home page, Information on Glow, Don Ledingham’s blog.

I am delighted to be able to join you here today at the 2nd Scottish Government International Summer School on School Leadership.  The excellent turn out during the summer holidays is a clear indication of the significance that this event has for educational leaders.  I am pleased to see that we have wide representations from within schools (headteachers, deputy headteachers, principal teachers, chartered teachers and classroom teachers) and from local authorities and other stakeholders.  I am also glad that the summer school has again been able to attract interest from abroad.  I am sure you are all enjoying your week - it certainly looks an interesting, varied and challenging programme. I want to do two things as I speak to you this afternoon. 

As part of today’s proceedings in Belfast, we looked at some of the issues around the uses of e-portfolio in education and I used CPDReflect to exemplify progression.

I interspersed these slides with live visits to the beta version of CPDReflect and there was a good deal of interest in how Scottish educators might use the toolkit (and the odd envious glance from our Northern Irish colleagues, I think it’s fair to say!)

Today, I am attending a conference in Belfast. As promised here are the links and the presentation for all interested parties.

• 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 feel free to sign up to the CPD update
• and our national database of CPD opportunities - CPDFind.

Don’t forget to leave a comment if you have any questions!

Muriel Amaechi and I led a very enjoyable session in Dunbar Grammar today as we started the pilot of CPDReflect.

There were a couple of wee technical hiccups at the start (as you might expect) which we were quickly overcome. The speed at which colleagues from East Lothian got to grips with the toolkit was heartening and the suggestions for improvement were numerous and various.

The pilot will run to the end of term and we will publish (and take account of) the lessons learned over the summer testing period.

The best bit was an overheard comment from one of the participants -”That’s so cool!” Not something you hear often when talking about the PRD process! Of course, they could have been talking about the excellent catering from the Dunbar Grammar catering staff!

I am on my way to Dunbar Grammar to help with the start of the CPDReflect pilot. Brave and kindly souls from Dunbar Grammar, St Gabriel’s Primary and Musselburgh Grammar (our good friend Ollie Bray who so kindly blogged from the Summer School last year) will assemble this afternoon to be the first of many to use this innovative toolkit.

I am very grateful to Kirsty Robertson and Ruth Munro of East Lothian Council for their support and to Graham Wilson and Dominic Torrisi and all the other ‘computer-whisperers’ at LTScotland and 3T who pulled rabbits out of hats in the last few days!

Look out for more posts on progress with the pilot here.

CPDReflect is an online toolkit to help teachers and other educators to reflect on their practice, maintain a CPD portfolio and share with other CPDReflect users. The toolkit consists of several separate, but linked, tools.

The Reflection tool.

CPDReflect will allow users to drill down through frameworks, such as the professional standards, and to evaluate themselves against elements of these frameworks. To help in the process,

The 1st part of the afternoon session of the meeting was given over to an update on CPDScotland,  the CPD team’s online CPD project.

Some of the key points to emerge:

• there are over 150 CPD providers on the CPDFind system and many such as The University of Glasgow, the Open University and LTScotland’s - Learning about Learning are committing heavily to populating the database with their CPD resources
• Finding CPDFind will be all the easier as almost all of the local authorities in Scotland have installed a magic button to CPDFind on their local sites (the CPD Superheroes as they are now to be known!)
• the CPD team are hoping to try out the CPDConfer tool from mid-Feb with a  occasional paper on coaching and mentoring.

We started the second part with a game of ‘PRD Fortunes’! “We asked 100 colleagues what they reflect on before their PRD interview…” etc. It was a bit of fun to start the vital discussion on CPDReflect. CPDReflect is the online self-evaluation tool and CPD portfolio currently under development.  CPDReflect, among other things, hopes to help bring the Professional Standards to life.

The 1st workshop was on the ‘who and how’ of exemplifying the Professional Standards. This generated a tremendous amount of discussion and you can see the complete summary of points made in this document.

Lastly, and all too briefly because of the worsening weather, we considered the ‘building blocks’ needed to make CPDReflect a success.