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.
