CPD Team

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!

CPDConfer our new tool for discussion on key CPD developments goes live on the afternoon of the 28 February and can be accessed through the CPD Scotland site.

The first edition concentrates on coaching and mentoring and contains examples and accounts of practice from across Scotland. It also features pieces written by Gary Bloom and Jan Robertson who offer international perspectives on coaching in education. Thanks to the many folks in the CPD community who have shared their work and colleagues in LTS who have helped bring CPDConfer to life. 

Please join in the live discussion and share your ideas at  http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/cpdscotland/cpdconfer/index.asp

And if you want to encourage colleagues to join in, send them this CPDFind entry.

I spent a very illuminating day with some of the EIS learning reps who came from all over Scotland to learn about our online CPD project, CPDScotland.

The 24 reps who attended over 2 sessions looked at, and discussed, the various aspects of the project, including the use of CPDFind and how Glow may become an invaluable tool for CPD.

In turn, I found out the variety of ways that EIS learning reps contribute to CPD in their local authorities. This varies from being an independent sounding board on CPD matters for their members, to the management and delivery of key aspects of CPD, including the role of professional recognition. I look forward to the day when EIS learning reps feature as providers of CPD in CPDFind.

It struck me that many of the EIS learning reps are well advanced in online CPD skills, given that some act as tutors for the Chartered Teacher programme in the University of Paisley, which is delivered online.

You can find out more about the work of the EIS learning reps on the EIS website.

Jim Buchan of LTScotland’s Glow team moves on today to pastures new with Cisco. He has been a valued source of advice for many aspects of the CPDScotland project. He has that tremendous ability to speak both ‘geek’ and education and an enormous amount of patience with eejits like me who don’t know their ‘shibboleths’ from their ‘core IDs’. I know, I have no idea what they mean either! I do know when it came to translating the CPD team’s online visions into a technical reality, Jim was always there to help, for which many thanks!

Good luck with the new venture!

The CPD Team blog is part of the CPD Scotland project which aims to encourage all of us in the educational CPD world to use online technology in CPD. This includes:

• CPD Scotland, the team website
• CPDFind, a national database of CPD opportunities
• CPDReflect, the working title for a toolkit to assist in the whole PRD process with the emphasis on the reflect!
• Glow and CPD.

I’ll post a lot more on these topics in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, please keep in touch. You can post a comment on this blog, use our feedback form, drop me a line at c.morris@ltscotland.org.uk, or sign up for our email bulletin. If none of that suits, give the team a call or send a carrier pigeon!

Look forward to hearing from you!