Get the lates news and updates from CPDLead here in the January newsletter.
If you are a leader of CPD in your setting and aren’t yet a member of CPDLead – what are you waiting for?! Have a look at our online community and sign up – it’s simple and it’s free! http://bit.ly/cpdlead3
CPDStepin (the national community for supply teachers on Glow) is hosting a major online event for educators in Scotland in the week beginning 13th June. Each evening at 7pm, we will feature a CPDMeet on the theme of Additional Support for Learning:
All educators with a Glow username and password are very welcome. For more details and sign-up, please see the CPDStepin Summer Summit on Glow
We’ve been working hard to bring a new look to the CPDMeet experience for you! Our commitment to offer at least one CPDMeet per week (of term time) is on track and we kick off the 2011 programme on January 12th with CPDMeet18: Louise Jones of Highland Council on their approach to e-safety, a subject that no educator can afford to ignore. With a few details to finalise for CPDMeet 19 which will hopefully take place the following week on Tuesday 18th, the next in the series is CPDMeet 20 on Thursday January 27th , and it will be of interest to many educators. Graeme Logan of the Teacher Education in Scotland Review Group will lead a discussion on the findings of the review, and we are hoping that many of our colleagues in Teacher Education Institutes will be able to join us on Glow for this one.
The teacher education theme is continued in CPDMeet 21 with Dr Dan Tierney of Strathclyde University talking about the MLPS experience in Scotland – have we got it right, and inviting interested professionals to discuss and offer their own suggestions as to the way forward for primary languages in Scotland. CPDMeet 22 is slightly different as it will consist of a follow-up discussion from CPDMeet 17, where Ian Stuart inspired a group of CPDMeeters with his discussion on using wikis for collaborative learning. Ian has set up a wiki in the share area for CPDMeet 17 for attendees to experiment with. CPDMeet23 takes on technology; Brian McLaren, formerly of the Consolarium team takes us through games-based learning on February 24th and the last planned one in this series so far takes a look at interdisciplinary learning in secondary, with Mary Smith of Montrose Academy sharing her experience in CPDMeet24.
The programme will continue and further dates will be posted here and on Glow. You will notice that the sign-up process has been streamlined: the new design offers one space where you can not only sign -up for the CPDMeet, share any relevant ideas, issues,or interesting practice and meet other interested CPDMeeters beforehand; you can also make your CPD experience matter afterwards by endorsing it through CPDFind, by setting yourself a follow-up intention , by recording the experience in your CPDReflect, or by finding out more about CPDMeets and the topic for discussion. All of this brought to you cost free, straight to your desktop. Happy Christmas from CPDSanta!
It is fair to say that the noticeboards at Stirling Management Centre on Thursday 18th and Friday 19th November weren’t displaying their usual lists of meetings. Yes, Scotlands’ Colleges were there, NAR people were there along with a few more seasoned regulars but one event stood out from the others: Hoo tae luik guid glaikit. This was a two day creative hothouse to give CPD leaders and managers from local authorities the opportunity to “makeover” their online communities, with the help of the National CPD team and Glow development officers.
Con Morris orchestrated the session, outlining in his introduction the drivers behind the “Glaikit” concept: not just tightening purse-strings but also the massive potential there is in Glow as learning and sharing platform, and how having it brings a responsibility to use it for sharing at every level especially nationally.
Anna Rossvoll from Aberdeenshire gave a local authority perspective on Glow communities which then lead into groups establishing their priorities and principles for online communities , before getting down to some practical work, expertly supported by the Glow development officers, Katie Barrowman, Sarah Burton, Alan Hamilton,Charlie Love, and of course each other!
As the day evolved, a really useful “makeover sample book” started filling up with useful short “how – to guides” on using web parts in Glow. A thought-provoking discussion on levels of participation online – the #Glaikit Lurkers Debate began to probe our understandings and beliefs on communities, sharing, participation and responsibility( collegiality), and spilled over into Twitter, where some people were following our hashtag with interest and joined the debate.
Progress was shared via the trusted puggy machine at the end of Friday afternoon, and before departure people were invited to share their intentions for their communities in the dedicated glaikit i-share area, which will be revisited.
One of the unexpected features of Building Windmills was the use of Twitter before, during and after the event. Twitter is a ‘micro-blogging’ tool which is catching the imagination of educators the world over as a way to stay in touch and getting some serendipitous CPD. The essence of Twitter is you have up to 140 characters to describe what you are doing, express an opinion or point things out to fellow Twitter users.
Opinions on its use vary from “the best professional development a teacher can get!” to “I don’t get it. It seems like the 21st century equivalent of writing on the toilet wall to me!”
Before the event, we set up a keyword (windmills09) which we tried to use in all our ‘tweets’ (as the conversation pieces are called). Mike Coulter (a consultant working with LTScotland on online strategy) attended the event and kindly gathered some of the conversations into a slideshow for us.
A number of the attendees (at Stirling and remotely using Glowmeet) have Twitter accounts (some of them as a result of Jaye Richards and Ollie Bray’s excellent session on Personal Learning Networks). Here are some of the ‘Twitterati’ involved but please feel free let me know if there are more out there!
cpdc , wheresiab, katiebarrowman, jayerichards, olliebray, robthill, mikecoulter, laurieod, derekrobertson, cpdscotsman, cpdgirl, don_iain, dgilmour, gtcs, annemcghee, alagsmi, goodonskis, matthew_boyle, johnjohnston, theokk, ewanmcintosh, mvass…
The CPD Network Building Windmills (face to face) event took place on 5th and 6th February. It raised lots of great CPD conversations and challenges, partly because of its themes (online CPD and Curriculum for Excellence) and partly because of its blended format. The associated professional community on Glow (Building Windmills) was heavily used to stimulate and capture conversations, resource sharing and action planning. A range of social networking techniques were used including Twitter and Flickr. Several colleagues took part remotely using Glowmeet.
Over the coming week, I will extract and highlight key points from the Glow group and the event. In the meantime, if you are a Scottish CPD leader with a Glow account, please feel free to apply to join the Building Windmills community and keep an eye out for more posts on this blog.
(Thanks to Ollie Bray for the photo!)
Andrew Brown of the LTScotland Glow Team will set the ball rolling by asking the question “Can we do CfE without online CPD?” He will demonstrate a range of professional learning using online technology and get the 1st of the collegiate sessions underway.
Colleagues from a range of national organisations such as HMIE, SQA, GTCS and DTS have kindly agreed to share the stage and demo and discuss their existing online CPD provision and their plans for the future. Colleagues taking part are:
Each will demonstrate their current online CPD provision, outline their plans/thoughts/expectations for the future and take some time to focus on their role in CPD for CfE. There will be ample time for questions from the floor and Glowmeet. This session will be hosted by Roddy Stuart.
Jaye Richards (teacher in Cathkin High School) and Ollie Bray (DHT in Musselburgh Grammar) will lead a session on how online technology forms a key part of their own professional learning.
In this session, Con Morris of the National CPD Team will look at how CPDFind has developed over the last 2 years, give participants a sneak preview of the changes being made and host a discussion on its future.
Blog feed