Finally got around to uploading the Scottish version of ‘Did You Know: Shift Happens’ to Slideshare – please feel free to use/adapt/share!

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Today I took part in a CPDCentral/CPDReflect workshop with CPD coordinators from some of the local authorities around Glasgow. This was the fourth of a series of workshops abley led by Con Morris of the National CPD Team.

So what was I doing there you might ask?

In order to answer that, I’ll need to tell you a bit more about CPD Central and the newly developed tool CPD Reflect.

CPD Central is a National Group inside Glow for anyone that is interested in CPD. It’s an area to share and make connections across local authorities. I had the pleasure of doing a demonstration of Glow and an introduction to this online community for those present at the session. What interests me most about this community however is not merely that it exists, but how it’s being developed. You see CPD Central is not being managed or administered from on high, but rather the members are deciding what they want to do with the space. To me, that screams collegiality and community.

I wonder if people are ready for that though? All too often in Scottish education we seem to have a ‘what can I get’ mentality when faced with using technology. Where does an online community begin? Does it start with ‘what can I give’ or ‘what’s in it for us’?

The second tool that we were looking at in the workshop sessions was CPD Reflect. I remember sitting down with Con a couple of years ago as he started to gather opinion and advice about what a reflective online CPD tool could be, and we spoke at length about how beneficial an reflective journal could be to a practitioner, and how valuable it would be to have a tool that allowed a practitioner to judge their own development against the standard for professional registration.Two years later, CPD Reflect is about to be launched on a unsuspecting nation of educators.

Off the bat I love the whole concept of CPD Reflect. I think it’s great that there is now a tool to help in the whole CPD/PRD process, and make it far more meaningful for those involved, instead of the ‘tick the box’ exercise I fear it is for so many in scottish education. I love the fact that using this tool, you can personally set targets an objectives for improvement in areas of your professional practice and let technology do what it does best – collate, track and share. How brilliant is it that this tool allows you to share what you want from your own area of CPD Reflect with others of your choosing?

Does this all sound too good to be true? I suspect there has to be a catch – I don’t know if teachers will have time to get the best out of this tool. It takes time to fill in sections of information. You’d have to commit to this tool to realise the benefits. Do teachers have time to do this in an already busy working day?

How often do we merely choose a CPD activity because we saw something we liked in a local authority calendar, or because it related to the school development plan? How closely do either of these factors relate to our own professional needs for development? CPD Reflect allows us to flip this model on it’s head, and focus instead on our needs for development. It allows us to recognise areas where we are merely beginning to adopt good practice, or integrate it into our working life. Perhaps the tools best strength lies in the ability to note not just where we are integrating, but where we are innovating in our work – connecting innovators with beginnners could work wonders on our profession.

CPD Reflect will be available soon through Glow – watch the CPD Scotland and Glow Scotland websites for further details.

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I’m sitting in the ‘classroom’ in LTS attending the ‘Inspiration’ sessions that Ewan McIntosh organises for us. (I can see a few bloggers infront of me – John Johnston, Neil Winton, David Noble, Mike Coulter, Bill Boyd), David Gilmour, Tess Watson) Today we’re looking at Hans Rosling and how much your presentation style says about your content. He makes statistics seem sexy – if you haven’t seen the presentation, then watch it below:

How often have you seen someone presenting data or text in a presentation in a visually poor way? A picture says a thousand words.

The tool that Hans Rosling uses is gapminder – a collection of tools that makes presenting data visual.

Ewan has asked us to work in a groups to identify what makes his presentation good, and what could have been done more effectively – here are some of the suggestions from the room:

Good?

Enthusiasm, humour, passion, approachable rapport, software (use of graphics and animation), multimedia, leading up to a punchline, (free up your data), telling a story (health not wealth), we shouldn’t generalise about areas of the world, supported metaphor, software enhanced what he was saying, cultural metaphor (day at the races) – who’s in the lead, he knew his presentation (software and subject matter) expertly, few words or bullet points,

What could be done more effectively?

Very fast in his delivery (Ewan noted his pace a positive pace), too long, quite often had his back to the audience, quite political in points?

We then had a quick look at Steve Jobs presentation style. Why is Steve Jobs a good presenter? He tells stories really well. Fairy stories – triumvirate colons – repetition – using transitions at the right place (transitions are best used when you make a transition in the points you are making)

Are we good at admitting where we’re not doing well? Or are facing challenges?

We had a quick look at probably the most famous speech in history – ‘I have a dream‘ – did you know it’s 12 minutes before MLK utters his famous phrase?

Compare presentation styles – Steve Balmer – look how animated he is, and how often he says the same thing over and over again. He is a classic example of how not to present!

Ewan then asked us to spend time on a presentation that we give. He gave us a few tips to think about presentation styles – pecha kucha, 10-20-30 rule (10 slides, 20 minutes, 30 point font), Flickr for images, zamzar for grabbing video to use in a location where we cannot access video, splashr, or piclens to mix your presentation up. Bring along a real live example – Jill Bolte Taylor – her example is quite extreme!) – rehearse your key points if you are speaking, rehearse the entire thing if you are presenting, always ask to use your own laptop, get a roving mic. Numerous good points for us to consider!

Ewan has provided all the links used today over on the connected live site.

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