This is a guest post by Jean Ward of Kirkwall Grammar School, Orkney
Jean Ward, DHT at Kirkwall Grammar School in Orkney has been making good use of our CPDShorts by creating an innovative programme of lunchtime sessions based around them.
The Glow CPDShorts – thought pieces on current issues in Scottish education – were held on four successive Wednesdays at lunchtime; all staff were invited to bring their lunch. These sessions are quick and informal – in order to make the most of time available the sessions are “flipped” with some suggested advance reading or watching.
Jean has kindly shared her programme with us. CPDShorts are freely available to all members of CPDCentral, so if you are a CPDLeader in your school, why not try them out as part of your collective CPD plan and get some lunchtime learning going on!
Although each meeting attracted only a small audience, it was important to those who came that they could share discussion in an informal setting. It was noticeable that most participants were from smaller departments with limited opportunity for professional dialogue.
Please get in touch if you would like more details.
CPDmeets are lively, quick, convenient and informal CPD opportunities which use Glowmeet to connect educators around a theme of common interest. Coming soon …….
• SQA Academy on Glow (http://bit.ly/cpdf1628) is hosting a series of CPDMeets starting on May 17th at 12 noon. Each CPDMeet in this series will be on a different aspect of e-assessment, and if you are interested in these CPDMeets, please sign up for the first . It is hoped that a wide range of interested parties, including students, will take part in these discussions to help shape the future of e-assessment
• Catriona from the team will also lead CPDMeet 31 on intercultural awareness and MLPS on May 18th at 4pm. Please sign up
• Guitarmeet was so successful we’ve planned a follow-up on Monday May 23rd at 18:30 Sign up here: http://bit.ly/cpdmeet32
• Pam Currie from the Glow team will also be exploring making learning relevant and the cross-curricular potential within the daily online newspaper for students, the Daily What! On Tuesday June 7th at 4pm. SHope you can join us for one or all of these – all the meetings take place in our CPDCentral discussion room. Hope to see you there.
George Smuga, former government adviser and headteacher lead a really successful CPDMeet on Monday 21st March on Building Your Curriculum: moving into the senior phase. Participants tuned in from all over, including Shetland and the Highlands to share insights and issues into how we are approaching curriculum planning for this stage. The discussion was wide-ranging, and time didn’t allow as full an exploration of this issue as we felt we needed, so it might be something to revisit. You can see the recording at http://bit.ly/cpdmeet27 so why not have a look with some colleagues and if you feel you would like to take this issue further, add your thoughts to the discussion in the i-share area.
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!
I came across this fascinating blogpost yesterday by Stephen Downes, the Canadian education technology research specialist, and it gives a really thought provoking insight into many issues which resonate with the thinking of the National CPD Team (and probably many of our extended learning community as well).
In deconstructing the myriad of approaches to learning which Stephen identifies as either present or emerging, he re-evaluates the role of the educator, in alignment with the changing demands these different approaches bring with them.
He then identifies 23 different roles an educator may be required to fulfill and suggests that far from simplistically implying that educators are the most important determinant of student achievement, we might be wise to look much more carefully at educators strengths and deployment, and at how online learning is evolving, with opportunities for learners to seek out what they need when they need it. And most importantly, he suggest that we should be thinking and talking about this; having the conversations, and identifying moments to accomodate a shift in this direction.
A useful post-hoc contribution to the Summer School 2010 on transformational change, and great stuff for discussion in our online communities.
Let the conversations begin!
Stephen’s article was sourced in the Dec 8th edition of Huffington Post
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.
I am delighted to tell you that the CPD Team and partners are continuing their full programme of CPDMeets (free webconferences on Glow).
The season kicks off with the subject of professional learning communities. Fearghal Kelly will talk about “Subject learning communities” which is East Lothian’s take on professional collaboration. You can register for Fearghal’s CPDMeet on Glow
Journey to Excellence is an excellent, online CPD resource which covers 10 dimensions of excellence with a comprehensive set of video and downloadable think-pieces. Look out for the specialist CPD trails through the materials!
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