Author: Susan Greig

Learning Technologist with a passion for learning. #CMALT champion. Lifelong learner - #EdUni23Things, #MOOCs, http://Lynda.com

How I plan and record my CPD activity

At the end of January Maren Deepwell invited #CMALT people on twitter to participate in a conversation to think about how we all record and plan our ongoing Continued Professional Development (CPD) activity for the CMALT portfolio reviews which take place every three years.

In February I took part in a really interesting Google Hangout with  Maren Deepwell, Lorna Campbell and David Hopkins, which started with a discussion around how we currently track our CPD activity.  It occurred to me that I’ve never designed what I do, it’s happened organically, so in writing this post will describe what I do, reflect on why I do it and see if this gives me any ideas for improvements.

My approach to recording CPD:

I’m very much a recorder of events. I enjoy taking notes (it helps me focus), photos and making diagrams and use these later when I go to make sense of what the experience has meant for me.

A screen shot of tabs in OneNote - Events Attended, Aurora, How To Do, Intern 2018, Writing, Marketing, Career Ready

At work I use OneNote – I’ve set up a CPD notebook with tabs for each activity, looking at these I see they can be activities I’m currently doing, so under ‘Career Ready‘ I’m making notes of all the activities and training for this activity,  or aspiration, ‘Marketing‘ is something I’m looking to find out more about, so here I’m collecting opportunities and noting articles.

If I need to know how to do something, either by going to Google or asking someone, I make time to record the answer – so I can easily get back to it – that is all in the ‘How To Do‘ tab. 

Over the last couple of years  I’ve moved to digital note taking, before that I had loads of paper notebooks. I take my laptop or a device to use for note taking. (I might at some point write a whole post about digital note taking so I’ll leave this here for now).

Since completing my CMALT and recent review – I’m now much better at collecting evidence of what I do. I take the time to write blog posts because I know I will get the benefit of them later. I collect as I go.

Screen shot of the Outlook to OneNote buttonOne thing I have discovered is that you can copy emails (complete with attachments) from Outlook into OneNote which  is a really easy way to keep stuff together.

 

At work, I am asked to compile a list of training courses for my Annual Development Review (ADR), which can be interesting to look back on, I usually compile this at the last minute by looking back at my diary, notes taken at events, and add in links to anything I blogged about.  At my annual review I take suggestions with me so I can talk through with my line manager what I want to do and opportunities that might help me to get there.  Its worth bearing in mind it can often take a while to actually get accepted on the course you want to go on. I was able to participate in the Leadership Foundation for Higher Educations Aurora programme on the third year I applied – but it was worth the wait.

My approach to planning CPD

In approaching CPD I try to balance what I need to work on with what I’m interested in and the needs of my employer and my current job role. I’m also lucky to have a mentor at work (through the Aurora scheme) who is a great listener and wise advisor and it has been really useful to talk through my development with her.

What do I need?

I try to identify where there are skill or knowledge I need, for example as part of participating in the Aurora programme I identified that I needed to better understand assertiveness – and then went on to find that knowledge and experience. 

What’s out there?

I make a note of opportunities I’m interested in when I see or hear about  them, (usually on Twitter or mailing lists, or by word-of-mouth) even if the time is not right for me:

For example:

BYOD4L BRING YOUR OWN DEVICES FOR LEARNING: AN OPEN LEARNING EVENT FOR STUDENTS & TEACHERS (FACILITATED, STAND-ALONE) – this was on my radar for a couple of years before I managed to take part is some of it earlier this year.

Jisc Digital Leaders Programme – I saw an interesting panel discussion about this at Digifest, so I’ve kept a note of this to look at further.

Senior Fellow of the HEA – I’ve been on a waiting list to take part in our institutional scheme for HEA accreditation for the last year.

My institution has a Lynda.com subscription, I must admit I got very excited about this when I first had access, but have neglected it somewhat lately. There are good courses in there, but there is no social interaction around them and I miss that aspect. They are great if you just need to know about something, then and there. I finished the Learning Path to Become a Manager a while back and I am part way through the Learning Paths to  Become a Content Strategist. 

Moocs – I’ve completed a few but am always seeing more that look interesting.  Recently I completed an Introduction to Personal Branding on Coursera which was created by the University of Virginia. As a learning technology advisor, I always enjoy these from two angles, both the content and the approaches taken to learning design, content creation and delivery. 

I try to think beyond training courses at other development opportunities to gain skills or experience I need.  Last year to get mentoring experience I became a Career Ready mentor – which has proved to be both a challenging and rewarding learning experience. I’ve also taken on managing a student intern to gain management and recruitment experience. 

What I consider to be CPD:

A photograph of clouds at sunrise
Looking at the possibilities and reflecting

So CPD for me is everything I do to try to develop myself. It is training courses and conferences I attend, as well as those I plan and deliver. It’s the questions I ask myself and then try to seek answers too. It’s the stretch opportunities I take on at work.

I also read a lot of books, I love getting a book recommendation and will often be ploughing through a book months after the reasons for the original recommendations have faded. I did for a while try to take notes of what I thought of books, but that just doesn’t fit with the context of when I read, which is mainly listening to audiobooks while I walk or reading in bed. Part of this is my belief that you don’t always have to actively listen, if something is important or relevant to you, you won’t miss it. I occasionally take a photo of the front cover just as a reminder!

The stuff I want to think about but not to share…

I’ve also found it very useful to use writing to help me to think through something. In our conversation we discussed the ‘personal’ aspect of CPD – not every problem you are working through can be shared in public, or can be fixed by gaining particular knowledge.  I have use google docs as a space for my private reflection.  I’ve got a folder I call ‘Work Pondering’ where I write down things I want to think about, and I find that writing about them and revisiting them on several occasions can really help this process.  

Writing to share…..

I started with private writing but over the years I have built up my confidence to share some of my writing.  I write blog posts for my team blog and participated in an online course run at the University of Edinburgh  called 23Things for Digital Knowledge and now have set up a personal blog on my own domain.

Blogging is teaching me different skills including: writing for an audience, writing with a message, writing to remember, or to connect with other people, or to promote an activity.

What’s for me and what’s for my role?

My work ADR is for here and know opportunities that are clearly role related. There are other things I want to develop that are aspirational, tangential and I can’t really link to work and these I decide to do in my own time. When I wrote my original CMALT portfolio, looking at what I did in relation to the core areas made me think about my own experience at that point and identify where I wanted to gain more – it wasn’t always immediately obvious how that related to my current job, seeing things within the CMALT guidelines gave me more confidence to pursue further development in these related ares. 

Like everyone, sometimes I have to do CPD I’m told to do! For example I’ve completed compulsory training in, Engaging with Change, Understanding Recruitment, Selection and the law and Information Security Essentials some in face to face sessions and others online.

I try to approach this with an open mind. As a trainer myself, I am respectful of the person who is delivering the training (I’ve stood in their shoes, I don’t want to be the tough crowd!). I try to think about what is the underlying  strategic reason why I’ve been sent on this? I try to get something out of every session even if it is ideas on the style or process of delivery.

I have come to accept that life is a work in progress and accept that I need to keep learning and that I often revisit the same subject for several years from several angles…. for example I don’t think I’m every going to be done with, presentation skills, time management, project management or people skills. Not that I’m particularly uninformed about any of these – just  there is always more to learn!

Questions?

Writing this post has been a useful exercise that has left me with these questions:

Am I being efficient in the way I approach planning and recording my CPD? Could I streamline and plan better?

How do other people record their CPD?

What do we all understand to be CPD activity?

I look forward to continuing this conversation.

Updated Confirmation and date for CMALT Portfolio Review June 2016

I declare that, to the best of my knowledge, the statements and evidence included in this application accurately describe my practice and are drawn from my own work, with the input and support of others duly and clearly recognised.
 
Signed: Susan Greig Date: 26 May 2016
 
(Note that forms submitted electronically will be treated as if they were signed so long as the applicant’s name and date of completion are typed above.)

Updated future plans for CMALT Portfolio Review June 2016

The Future Next Exit by Buck CC BY-SA 2.0

I was surprised to see that my future plans still looks so similar to those I submitted in my CMALT portfolio at the end of 2008. I did complete the ITIL certification in 2008 and this is still relevant as there is a strong push for service improvement in ISG.

I have not taken any formal management training but have had some management and recruitment experience within my role. This has been enough to make me realise that I don’t want to move into a management role, I would prefer to move towards a lecturing post as I want to do research and teaching.  I am currently putting together a PhD application for a project in the digital education field and plan to do this part time over the next 6 years (I hope I have made progress in this by my next review!). I am also looking for opportunities for scholarly and research activity within my role – opportunities, to review, write and present.
My current work is concerned with supporting learning technology staff development – I now have 15 years of experience as a learning technologist and I feel that I can now contribute to supporting the wider community of learning technologists and to support development of people coming into the field. I have recently started to work on a project that I am really excited about, to support a cohort of Learning Technologists at U of E through CMALT accreditation. Also I have joined the elearning@ed committee – this is a group at the University of Edinburgh that is for all staff who want to find out more about technology-enhanced learning, it brings together an interesting mix of academic, support and administrative staff and puts on events throughout the year – including an annual conference which I will help to organise.

Overview of CPD activities over the past 3 years. For CMALT Review June 2016

Attached are the CPD lists from my previous 3 annual development reviews(ADRs):
In this section I will  focus on three CPD examples:

1) Writing for the EDE Team Blog

This is not a specific CPD activity but rather a reflective tool that carries across all my CPD activities. Just after I rejoined the team a team blog was set up in WordPress and I began slowly adding posts to this. My first posts are written after attending conferences and events, and this has been useful as I can link back to them later – as you can see in the training forms I have used for my annual development reviews. I find this a really useful addition to the CPD process as it encourages me to reflect on the events I attend, why am I attending these and on how do they relate to my current work. I now schedule in time after an event to look over my notes, follow up any links and to write a post.
The blog is also a great way to make my work more visible and as a  tool for professional networking, I always send out the link to new posts on LinkedIn and Twitter. Contributing to a team blog is great because there is not too much pressure on any one person to keep writing posts and reading colleagues posts it helps me see how our work interrelates. As my confidence in writing posts developed I also added posts about projects I have been involved in, such as this one on TREE,  and and events I organised, such as this one on Geolocation and Learning and Teaching.
I hope this activity shows a commitment to communicate and disseminate effective practice. The blog posts give the staff I support a wider view of my activities and interests and I hope showcase some of my skills and knowledge in learning technology.

2) Conference committee member for #OER16 Open Culture 19th & 20th April 2016

Earlier this year I volunteered for the Conference committee member for #OER16 Open Culture. The Conference was held in University of Edinburgh this year so it offered a great opportunity to be part of something close to home whilst looking beyond my own institution to be part of the learning technology community. U of E has recently started to offer an Open Educational Resources Service from within my team, though I was not directly involved I wanted to find out more.
Because of my involvement in OER16 I did my IDEL assessment (discussed below) on Open Educational Resources (OERs) in HE and created this website which was designed as an OER and licensed for reuse.
I found it really interesting to be part of the conference committee, and later discussed what this entailed in a blog post.
I could have volunteered for more aspects but I did gain enough experience so that I would be much more confident to take on more roles in the future.
Because I took part in the OER16 committee I am more confident and better informed about Open Educational Resources, I got to meet and work with a great group of people and I was able to attend an really interesting conference. All of this has broadened my knowledge to I can provide better support and advice about OER to our staff.

3) PG Cert in Digital Education

In 2015 I applied for a staff bursary to do the Introduction to Digital Environments for Learning (IDEL) course which is the foundation course for the MSC in Digital Education.
I wanted to do this in part to see if I could fit studying back into my life as I was still thinking about applying for a PhD. This course gave me the chance to get back up to date with the literature in digital education. Also I wanted to experiencing online learning as a student –  this course is part of a fully online distance programme.It was a great opportunity to keep up to date with new technologies as IDEL is all about trying new things for example I had the chance to experience new types of assessed work, the first part of the assessment is a private blog between you and your blog tutor and for the second assessment I made a website rather than submitting a conventional essay. I blogged about the IDEL course afterwards.
IDEL challenging me to move out of my comfort zone. I found it a great CPD experience and it has re-invigorated my passion for my area of work. This has in turn influenced the level of energy and passion I bring to the staff and students I support and has increased my understanding and empathy for the experiences of ODL students who are very reliant on technology to mediate their experience of ‘being’ at university.
I then applied for a further bursary for a 20 credit course to make up the PG Cert in Digital Education and this semester took the course Digital Education in Global Context (DEGC).
This course, like IDEL, had two assessments, the first part was based on participation in a group blog. Each week had readings around a particular topic and each week two or three people were asked to lead by posting twice and following up conversation in the comments.  I chose to be part of the group who led the blogs on weeks about the economics of digital education and on gender and technologies .
The blog format was challenging, there was a great deal to read and I got interesting insights from the other students who were also educational professionals but working in a range of different contexts. It was interesting to see the different approaches and writing styles.
Like OER,  MOOC development  is supported within my team but it is not something I am directly involved in so I wanted to take the opportunity to get some experience as a MOOC participant and to reflect on this, to give me some insight into how MOOCs are for participants and on what we are doing with them at my institution.
These two courses complete the PG Cert in Digital Education and I am looking forward to graduating from this programme in November.

Summary of recent work/practice. CMALT Portfolio Review June 2016

A Photo of Susan GreigI have found it really interesting reviewing my CMALT portfolio seven and a half years after I submitted it. You can see the original portfolio here – sorry some of the links have degenerated over time.  My feedback on this was positive but did mention that the “the volume submitted was excessive” so I will try to be less verbose this time!
My LinkedIn Profile gives an overview of my recent employment.
I still work in the University of Edinburgh for the central Information Services Group. I was a eLearning Advisor in eLearning and IS Skills Development until 2009 when I left to have my first child. During the year I was away my department was restructured, so I knew I would not be returning to the post I left. On return I was offered a secondment to the newly formed Institute for Academic Development (IAD) undertaking a scoping project to link learning technology more broadly to staff development for academic staff. At U of E there is a current focus on developing Online Distance Learning  and a five year well funded project called the Digital Education Initiative which supported new online PGT courses was just getting underway when I was in IAD and in the later part of my secondment I was asked to set up the Online Distance Learning (ODL) network, which I’m pleased to see is now well established. I finished this secondment in 2012 when I left to have my second daughter, returning after 9 months in March 2013. My department was again going through a period of change and restructuring and my post is now Learning Technology Advisor in the Educational Design and Engagement Team within the newly formed Learning Teaching and Web Division.
Since I returned to my team as a Learning Technology Advisor  three years ago key projects and services I have worked on:
TREE Project – this was a project to deliver an interactive educational resource discovery tool. This was developed to a beta version but was not given any resource to promote it or to develop it further, so it is actually in the process of being closed. Disappointing as this is I do think I learned a lot from something that didn’t succeed!
I currently lead on the Question Mark Perception assessment service so am involved in upgrade projects, training and service support for this. I am service second on Top Hat and Collaborate.
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