Get Safe Online is a newly launched UK Government website which advises people on how to be safe online without frightening the wits out of them! I like the quiz (and its associated links) in particular. I will definitely be referring to this in the help systems for CPDReflect and other online tools. My thanks to John Connell who pointed this out in his blog!

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. 

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.

I spent much of Monday working with May Boyd, Margaret Tracy and Jim Reid of the South Lanarkshire advisory service. Together we ‘built’ a Glow group to help foster the professional community of CPD coordinators and QIOs in South Lanarkshire. May came up with the title, ‘CPD SLC’. I like it, it does what it says on the tin!

The CPD SLC group will use a lot of the Glow functionality to

• provide news and key links
• allow dissemination and sharing of resources
• promote discussion
• and it even takes a feed of information from the CPD Team blog and CPDFind!

I wish May and the team well and I am sure we will all benefit from this pioneering work!

John Johnson of Sandaig Primary is taking Roland Barth’s quote “The most powerful form of learning, the most sophisticated form of staff development, comes not from listening to the good words of others, but from sharing what we know with others” to a new level. With some limited support from the CPD Team, he is setting up an online ‘CPD collective’ where teachers can contribute CPD opportunities using a wiki.

To find out more:

• You can read John’s blog post at Connected Live
• You can see his presentation from a recent TeachMeet in Perth
• You can have a look at the early development wiki for the initiative.

We look forward to being John’s partner in this exciting development.

I spent some time today with Terry Kerr, Tony McCulloch and Kevin Logan of Highland Council talking about online CPD. As often is the case , I got back far more than I gave!

Highland have long had a practice of enhancing their face to face CPD with online support. Much of this is housed in the Staffroom on the HVLC, Highland Virtual Learning Community. Here you will find considerable CPD programmes and reflection frameworks, such as

• the Support for Leadership Project in the Highlands which provides support for individual leadership skills
• the CPD Reflection framework which seeks to promote professional dialogue especially in AiFL
• and a wiki for Probationers.

I am struck by the strong links between CPDReflect and the Leadership framework and hopefully the two will feed off each other in time.

In discussing reflection on practice, Tony made a telling comment on how pupils can be vital partners in helping teachers teach better. This got us talking about a CPD opportunity on how to have these conversations in the classroom. Anybody out there help? If so, let me know and we will get it into CPDFind.

Highland Council are very happy to share these resources with the rest of Scotland and beyond. Tony was telling us how one of their online courses for pupils was recently translated into Sinhalese for nurses in Ceylon!

Actions I will take as a result of the meeting:

- find some time to describe some of the individual HVLC opportunities on CPDFind (especially the opportunities on the reflection framework as demonstrated so passionately by Kevin!)
- look at a more in-depth case study of how Highland have embraced online CPD on the CPDScotland site

I am grateful to Terry for setting this up and I am looking forward to taking up the invite to talk to Highland CPD coordinators later in the year.

I was lucky enough to be invited to a demo of LTScotland’s Consolarium earlier today. The Consolarium is the brainchild of Derek Robertson and focusses on the value of learning through games. Derek has (in a relatively short time) initiated a number of case studies with impressive results, including the use of:

• Dr Kawashima’s Brain training with P4 pupils
• Guitar Hero as the focus for a primary / secondary transition
• the use of role playing games.

Talk about motivation!

He even promised to populate CPDFind with the CPD opportunities on his site and blog. My kind of guy!

I have just come back from doing some workshops on online CPD in Stornoway, Benbecula and Lerwick. I am struck by the real enthusiasm shown by many of the participants for online CPD. Together we looked at:

• the values underlying the work of the CPD Team
• how CPDFind can help reach the CPD that other sources can’t reach
• how Glow will be used for collegiate and individual CPD
• and how CPDReflect will help us gain an insight into our CPD needs.

I want to add my thanks to Donnie MacLeod and Dougie Hutcheon, CPD coordinators in the Western Isles and Shetland Islands and to all the other colleagues who made me (and my technology) most welcome.

And the seals? That was part of the view from my hotel room in Lerwick!