OllieBray.com

Social Media in Learning and Education (SMILE) - 4 of 6: Using social media for professional development (CPD)

 

Sponsored by Facebook I did some work recently for the EUN where we looked at the role of Social Media in Learning and Education (SMILE). One of the outputs of my contribution to the project was a professional development eLearning course for European Teachers and Head Teachers on the use of Social Media in Schools.

As this part of the course has now finished (and we have gone into the community development phase) I am re-posting a version of the materials here so others can benefit from them.

This is part 4 of 6 - Using social media for professional development (CPD) 

Using social media for professional development (CPD): The Video

Social Media in Learning and Education (SMILE) - Video 4 of 6: Using social media for professional development from Ollie Bray on Vimeo.

 

Using social media for professional development (CPD): The Course Notes and Links 

 

1. Personal Learning Networks

Much like the term ‘Social Media’ there has been a lot written about the definition of ‘Personal Learning Networks’ over the years. Some of the pioneering research in this field has been completed by Dr Alec Couros, University of Regina, Canada.

Dr Couros argues that most typical teacher networks are one way and that teachers are delivered information on professional development and professional learning. He also talks about the rise of the ‘networked teacher’ where due to the increase in social media tools available for teachers professional learning and professional learning becomes two-way, driven by dialogue and as a result more open and reflective.

The key thing to remember about any Personal Learning Network is that they are, by definition, personal and depend on the interests and willingness of the individual to engage. When considering the use of social media to develop Personal Learning networks it may be useful to break them down into three component parts.

The first of these is face-to-face, even in the Internet age and with the rise of social media you can’t actually beat sitting down and talking to someone. Trusted professional feedback is also often born as a result of trusted relationships between colleagues.

The second component is one of closed digital communities. These are digital closed communities of practice where people may not know each other but they are connected through interest (examples might include TES Forums, Microsoft Partners in Learning Network and the discussion forums for the SMILE eLearning Lab).

The last components are digital open communities that are often un-moderated and are built around tools that have not been designed for education but have been adopted by educators. Examples of these tools include Blogs, Social Bookmarking and Open Content Repositories.

Some of these tools are services will now be discussed and exemplified below.

 

2. On-line Communities

On-line communities normally require registration and have been designed for a specific purpose to link people together via interest or for a specific project. The best on-line communities are ones that are allowed to grow organically over time because the users suggest new ideas or topics of discussion to keep the community vibrant and up-to-date.

Examples of on-line communities include:

• Microsoft Partners in Learning Network - a community for teachers and school leaders interested in using technology in education.

• Times Educational Supplement Subject Forums - a place where subject teachers discuss issues, up-load and share resources.

• Promethean Planet - a place to share and discuss Interactive Whiteboard Resources.

• EUN Community - a hub for European Union led projects as well as providing a facility for users to create their own communities of practice.

 

3. Using RSS

Reading about other peoples work and their reflections on classroom practice can be hugely valuable to your own professional development. Globally thousands of people are blogging about what is going on in their classrooms every day. The trick is trying to keep track of the blogs that interest you and to be automatically up-dated if someone posts something new or interesting.

Blogs produce an RSS feed (to find out what this is watch this CommonCraft video) but all you really need to know if that this means you can aggregate content from a variety of blogs into one place using an RSS Reader, such as Google Reader.

You will need a Google Account (which is free) to start using Google Reader. This CommonCraft video on Google Reader will tell you everything that you need to know about using this service. By using an RSS reader you can easily follow hundreds of blogs from educators around the world but only have to visit one website (your personal Google Reader page) to check for up-dates.

 

4. Social Bookmarking

Social Bookmarking is when you save the URL of a website that you like to another website rather than to your favourites on your web browser.  One advantage is that you can see if anyone else who is using the service has also save the website that you have just saved. This is useful because users who have saved the same website as you will have often also save other websites that you will be interested in.

This makes Social Bookmarking another great way to collaborate with people globally, to swap ideas and useful websites that you have found to help aid school improvement.

This CommonCraft video will tell you everything that you need to know about Social Bookmarking using a service called Delicious (although it is worth noting that Delicious has changed since this video was made).

 

5. Searching the Future Web

Google Alerts are a way of telling Google a key word of phrase and then if that word of phrase is published on the Internet and is picked up by the GoogleBot you are sent an email link to where the article has been published. You can also create an RSS feed for alert terms (see RSS above). The use of Alerts is an important 3^rd Millennium research skill and are  already used widely in higher education.

As well as setting up alerts for professional interests eg: “formative assessment,” “outdoor learning,” and “international school links”. It is also useful for schools to have a Google Alert set up around their own school name.

Used in this way Alerts can be used as an early warning system if someone writes about or mentions your school online. Importantly, it’s also a really good way to track wider student achievements. For example, many children take part in activities outside of the school and some of these activities are really impressive. These achievements are often written about in the local media and normally the child’s school is mentioned. As most papers are digitized, Google Alerts gives you an opportunity to receive this information as it is published. This is often before you have a chance to read a paper copy of the local news.

 

6. Micro Networks

Micro networks such as Twitter are a great way to receive short and concise advice, recommendations and resources from educators around the world. This article from Tony Parkin provides a good oversight of how you can find educators to follow on Twitter.

Hash (#) tags are also used within the Twitter community to bind conversation together. Most conferences now have a Twitter Tag and you can you services like Twazzup.com to search for a #tag and then aggregate all of the tweets and images shared on Twitter from the event. 

Other micro networks that are worth exploring for professional development purposes include Slideshare and SlideBoom. These are on-line communities where people share presentation slides and they are very popular with educators.

  

7. The Importance of Recommendation

As the above notes demonstrate there are an awful lot of professional development opportunities that are available on the web and many of these are linked to social media services.

However, just like any social service recommendations about a product are important. This is similar to recommending a product or a seller after you have bought somthing on Amazon - but within this context we are recommending professional development opportunities to others.

CPD Scotland is National Resource that has been developed by Education Scotland. One of its services is CPD Find, this is a national directory of paid for and free CPD opportunities. What is interesting about it is that it is not just a catalogue of courses because some of the courses have been endorsed by peers and you can see what other people think of the course content, delivery and value for money.

Including a system for open peer feedback and recommendations should be an important consideration for anyone who is interested in developing their own CPD portal. It also encourages teacher who attend the courses to become more reflective.

 

8. Research

Research into the use of social media for CPD is limited because the tools and service evolve so quickly. However, this report produced by The Pearson Centre for Policy and Learning and NoTosh Ltd in 2011 titled ‘Tweeting for Teachers,’ provides a number of useful case study examples of how social media can support teacher professional development.

 

Links for you to explore and reflect on:

On-line Communities:

• Microsoft Partners in Learning Network - www.pil-network.com

• Times Educational Supplement Subject Forums - www.tes.co.uk/forums

• Promethean Planet - http://community.prometheanplanet.com

• EUN Community - http://community.eun.org

 

Social Media Tools and Services:

• RSS - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS

• RSS in Plain English (CommonCraft) - http://goo.gl/v3IE

• Google Reader - www.reader.google.com

• Google Reader in Plain English (CommonCraft Video) - http://goo.gl/2Ia3

• Delicious - www.delicious.com

• Delicious in Plane English (CommonCraft Video) - http://goo.gl/IzBo5

• Google Alerts - www.google.com/alerts

• Twitter - www.twitter.com

• Twitter in Plain English (CommonCraft Video) - http://goo.gl/jD6i2

• Twitter Search in Plain English - http://goo.gl/MGQaK

• Twazzup - www.twazzup.com

• Slideshare - www.slideshare.com

• Slideboom - www.slideboom.com

• CPD Find - http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/cpdfind

  

Research and Articles:

• Who to follow on Twitter (Tony Parkin) - http://goo.gl/78mUs

• Tweeting for Teachers: how can social media support teacher professional development - http://goo.gl/Dxeis

 

Microsoft Peer Coaching

Last week I took part in the Microsoft UK Peer Coaching course led by Stuart Ball and Walter Patterson.

It was good to take part in some CPD over a couple of days and have the opportunity to meet some more enthusiastic teachers from around the UK. I was also good to see that Microsoft UK have named a meeting room after me in building 2! (this is a joke by the way!).

I’m not new to coaching and have been coached myself during my initial few months at Musselburgh Grammar School and I also took part in the East Lothian Internal Coaching progrmme a few years ago. I think it remains a powerful form of professional development.

The Microsoft Peer coaching resource materials are free on the Innovative Teachers Network. Although they are slightly written in US English (eg: using the word ‘instruction’ rather than ‘teaching’) I feel the resources are very good. Particularly considering they are aimed at and have been translated for an international audience.

The resources are free for anyone who is a member of the Innovative Teachers Network (ITN). I am mentioning this because the ITN is free to join and it would save any local education authority from re-creating their own programme. Many of the resources are written in Microsoft Office, which means I'm sure they could be adapted for local need.

The other thing that I found particularly appealing about the MS peer coaching programme is that participants on the pogramme can gain masters level accreditation at the University of Warwick. Again this is one thing that local versions of coaching scheme lack and would provide an extra insentive for those wishing to partisipate.

I’m just wondering now if it would be possible to build an internal peer coaching network – using the MS (or other peer coaching resources) within Glow?

Would this be a form of accredited CPD that Scottish teachers would find useful?

Direct link to the peer coaching resources here (registation required).

Scottish Learning Festival 2009: the Magnificent (CPD) Sevens

One of the great things about this years Scottish Learning Festival (SLF09) is its commitment to CPD and this year the CPD lounge will be a prominent feature.

I was genuinely honored (particularly when you look at the other speakers!) to be asked to present in the CPD lounge as part of the ‘CPD Sevens’ on the Thursday morning at 10am.

I have 7 minute to talk to the assembled audience about the value of personal learning networks. I also hope to be involved in a post talk GLOWmeet discussion.

If you are around at that time why don’t you pop in for a short presentation, a chat and some great coffee?

More details of the magnificent sevens below from the National CPD Team blog: 

Part of the CPD Team offering for the Scottish Learning Festival will be a calendar of 7-minute, lightning presentations to showcase innovative CPD.

Margaret Orr from the CPD Team has assembled  a wide variety of educators. Here’s a sneak preview:

• Graham Thomson (SCSSA) – Leadership of learning in the school
• Marion Morrison (EIS learning rep) – Reflections on Tuscany visit
• Gillian Brydson (Dumfries & Galloway) – CPD impact
• Adam Sneddon (Scottish Screen) – Visual literacy
• Susan Bain (DHT, Lockerbie High School) – Flexible routes to headship
• Ollie Bray (LTScotland) – Personal learning networks
• Julie McCaig (Irvine Royal Academy) – Learning rounds
• Soenaidh Black (Bannerman High School) and Eileen Cummings (Clydebank High School) - DHT experiences
• David Robinson (Open University) – CPD from the OU
• Aileen Spence (LTScotland) – International education
• Janie McManus  (HMIE) – A perspective on CPD for CfE

We will also be ‘Glowmeeting’ as many of the Sevens as possible, so you can access these live on the Glow Intranet. More details on CPDFind soon!

Scottish International Summer School, Day 4: Leadership Support and Challenge

Alan and Ian have both commented that I hadn’t ever got round to finishing my series of posts about the Scottish Leadership Summer School – slave drivers!. So tonight I dragged out my lap top to see how far I had got writing up day 4 and 5 of the conference. Day 4 was complete (I just obviously had never got round to posting it!) and Day 5 is half finished. I’ll post Day 5 ASAP, but below you will find a duplication of my summary of Day 4 that I have just posted over on the CPD Team Blog.

____________________________________________________

Scottish International Summer School, Day 4: Leadership Support and Challenge

Judith McClure was the forth person to take up the position as Chair at the International Summer School. Judith is the current Convenor of the Scottish Educational Leadership Management and Administration Society (SELMAS). In her opening address Judith picked up on some of the emerging key themes of the conference including the importance of building relationships, emotional intelligence and allowing time to think. She even managed to slot in a quick advertisement for the forthcoming SELMAS Conference in September.

The morning was taken up by an activity led by Graeme Finnie around the theme of coaching. We were asked to use group coaching to see if we could think of ways to develop leadership capacity through coaching and mentoring. I have written about coaching before and do believe that it is a powerful way to support leadership at all levels. However from the various conversations that emerged from the morning discussions it seemed that there was still a bit confusion in terminology as to what the differences were between coaching, mentoring, life coaching and counselling. Although we may never reach a true consensus or exact definition of what each of these things are for. I do believe that there is some work to be done in really helping Scottish teachers and leaders understand what we mean by ‘coaching’ in an educational sense.

Here’s what I think:

Mentoring is normally provided by to another person or group of people who have an expertise in the subject that the person is being mentored in. As well as reflection mentoring is also about giving advice based on the experience of the mentor.

Coaching does not have to be provided by a subject expert. Instead the coach has been training in questioning techniques. They are skilled in getting the participant to come up with their own answers by providing structured questioning to allow the person to have some really focused thinking time.

With this definition in mind and one of the recurring themes of the conference being that all leaders need more time to think. I think that coaching could be one way to push forward this aspect of the leadership agenda.

I also think that it is important that we differentiate between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ coaching if there are such terms? School leaders may already be using informal coaching in schools because it is really just structured questioning. However, I think formal coaching is different. During a formal coaching session a coach will guide the participant in order for them to find their own solution to a particular problem or obstacle. The coach will also help the participant set their own goals to help them overcome or review the problem. Coaching is powerful and important to school leaders because most of the time our minds are filled with more than one task and sometimes it is difficult to prioritise or tackle these tasks in any sensible order. I also believe that coaching can be immensely valuable when helping school leaders plan strategically. All to often school leaders get tied down with the day to day running of the school / authority and do not give enough time to strategic ‘blue sky’ thinking or a clear vision for the school. Working with a skilled coach can provide a way to give some quality time to both of these issues.

One final point, I believe that coaching is here to stay and I hope that there are some plans to engage the ITE Universities in the coaching process. To me this seems a useful way to push forward and develop a coaching model. 3580 students will enter ITE next year and I think that if they all new what coaching was (a clear definition) and if they had all had an opportunity to be coached and perhaps even benefited from being a peer coach then this would be a huge step forward and 3580 less people to convince about the merits of coaching when they enter the profession full time.

After Lunch the conference received a presentation from Graham Donaldson, Senior Chief Inspector, HMIe and Eamon Stack, Chief Inspector, Department of Education and Science, Eire. It was interesting to hear a little bit about the inspection model in Eire and to hear Graham Donaldson’s speak about school leadership. One big difference between the Scottish and Eire systems is that there is no Local Authority Education structure in Eire. Schools report directly back to the centre. After their presentations both Graham and Eamon received a number of questions from the delegation about the advantages and disadvantages of both systems and the inspection process in general.

The final presentation of the day was from Norman Drummond on the Columba 1400 experience. After a motivational introduction from Norman staff and students from Lossiemouth High School and Cumnock Academy took the lead and spoke to the conference about their own Columba 1400 experience. I have always been enthusiastic about outdoor learning and the power of the outdoors to develop leaders, aid reflection and empower people. The presentation provided me with even more evidence to support my theory. The audience listened to two groups of young adults explain to them how the Columba experience had changed their lives. The audience also had an opportunity to take part in some Columba activities and to find out how the schools had gone on to develop their own sustainable leadership programmes. This presentation was an excellent end to the day and for many the highlight of the week.

East Lothian Coaching Up-date

I took part in the original coach training programme offered by East Lothian Council and today we were recalled for our follow up meeting at John Muir House. It was nice to meet with members of the original group and swap stories on how our coaching was going. We are all at different stages in the new East Lothian coaching accreditation process, but I was pleased to be able to contribute to the development of the pilot programme.

I have taken a lot from my coach training, in particular the questioning techniques that it has taught me. In my new role at Musselburgh Grammar School

I can feel myself falling back on my coach training when dealing with pupils, staff and parents. I have found it particularly useful when using it in applying a restorative practice philosophy to help resolve conflict.

Since my original training I have dabbled with coaching groups of friends (mainly for practice), but if I am going to become a fully fledged coach I will need to have the opportunity to coach someone over a longer period of time. The suggested time period is about six hours (one hour a week). I did put out an open invite asking if there was anyone out there wanting to be coach – but I had very little interest.

I feel there is a place for coaching within education but I also feel that we have a lot of work to do in helping people understand what exactly it is. It has come up on the agenda few times at out management meetings and the perception is that it is life coaching or careers advice. In reality the coaching that were are trying to offer in East Lothian comes for an American driven model which is more about trying to get people to reflect on their own practice and make positive decisions about themselves to improve their efficiency. My role as a coach is to ask the right questions to allow the person being coached to come up with their own answers. 

This afternoon during our recall session. I had an opportunity to be coached about how I might go about introducing a coaching model into our school. After my 15 minute slot I came up with the following three point, progressive, action plan.

1. Take an opportunity to explain to staff what coaching is.

2. Ask interested staff to attend a 30 – 45 minute coaching session with a coach during a CPD afternoon. The key here, I feel, is to engage all East Lothian Coaches in this process. This way we may be able to get 12 staff being coached at the same time. Then we would get these 12 people together after their experience to reflect on their coaching experience.

3. For those staff who had had a positive experience or who could see the value in the model there would be an opportunity to sight up for a longer programme of 6 – 8 coaching sessions.

The next stage will be to find an opportunity for how to bring these ideas into practice. Once again if there is a member of the school community (including student teachers, NQT’s, teachers, support staff and managers) looking to develop their reflective practise or for some structure in working through a work related issue. Then I am still looking for volunteers to be coached. I am particularly interested in finding a volunteer who would like to use skype as a medium of communication. Email me or leave a comment if you are interested.

Teachers as Lifeguards

Picture by: Doug Belshaw

This is a great post (and picture) from Doug Belshaw on his blog teaching.mrbelshaw.co.uk. For me his post sums up what we are trying to achieve with our exc-el Extreme Learning project as another metaphor. I have invited Doug to contribute to our discussion over on the wiki.

Coaching

Coaching is on the school management team meeting agenda tomorrow so I have been refreshing my memory. I was given this book when I went on a coaching course just before the summer holidays. There are some interesting ideas here and I think an opt in coaching programme could be useful to some staff. In many ways it is could be a lot more constructive and target focused than the current Staff Development and Review. Anyone want to be coached for six weeks? or does anyone want to coach me?

Blogged with Flock

S6 Pupils become CPR Instructors

Resusitation Training
Originally uploaded by OllieBray.

I have blogged about first aid training in school before and how I think it should be incorporated into the curriculum. I have also talked about HEARTSTART UK and some of the wonderful practice that goes on in other schools both north and south of the border. This was reinforced to me a couple of weeks ago when I read this article from the BBC which said,

‘All children should learn basic first aid - such as dealing with choking, bleeding and shock - at school, the British Red Cross says.

Its survey of 1,960 adults suggests that 90% of the population believe the subject should be compulsory.’

As a first aid, lifesaving and lifeguard trainer perhaps I am a little bit bias, but I have to agree with the Red Cross in their statement. According to the British Heart Foundation,

‘Coronary Heart Disease is Britain’s single biggest killer. Every two minutes, someone in the UK has a heart attack.’

Coronary Heart Disease is a particular problem in parts of East Lothian (including Musselburgh), this combined with the statistic from the Royal Lifesaving Society UK which suggests that 70% of people requiring CPR require it in their own home (50% during the day and 20% at night) means that if any of our young people are faced with the choice of doing CPR it is likely to be a member of their family or a close friend.

Given these statistics and after chatting to some of our pupils today I am convinced that even through carrying out CPR may appear like a daunting prospect at least it should be a ‘well trained’ daunting prospect.

Today some of our S6 pupils were trained by the HEARTSTART UK team to be resuscitation instructors. We hope that they will now be involved in training some of out S3 and S4 pupils as part of the PE programme. Lorna McAvoy (our PT Health Education) and Rob Woodhead (our Sports Co-ordinator) have done a great job of organising the programme. If you have not seen it check out Rob’s blog at MGS Sports On-Line.

I am keen to look at ways of taking this idea further as a Curriculum for Excellence Project. The Curriculum for Excellence outlines four principles:

- Successful Learners: Learning lifesaving skills

- Confident Individuals: The confidence to act in an emergency or to training others (including adults and peers)

- Responsible Citizens: Knowing the responsible way to act in an emergency.

- Effective Contributors: What could be a more effective contribution than saving or knowing how to save another persons life?

Many current Curriculum for Excellence Projects have a high technology focus. Although I think a lot of these projects are good (or excellent!) I do think that we are missing some basic building blocks from our curriculum and I think this is one of them.

I am going to put together a paper outlining how we might take this forward as a school. It will include ideas for transition between primary and secondary and also progression. The training of trainers (Pupils) and commitment from the British Heart Foundation and Heartstart UK will help ensure that the project will be sustainable.

See you on the River!

Euthanasia Falls, Upper Dart.
Originally uploaded by camp_bellab.

No DIY this weekend - I start work at Glenmore Lodge at 8pm tonight, so I need to get away from my desk and up the A9. A quick post before I leave - I'm starting to get back into this!

I am working on a Scottish Canoe Association (SCA) level 3 Inland Kayak assessment course. this is a two day assessment course for people that want to lead groups on white water (up-to grade II). Although i don't really enjoy running assessments (I much prefer running the training courses) I am looking forward to this weekend and meeting few new people.

We will be assessing candidates on personal skills, knowledge, group leadership, coaching, safety and rescue techniques. There is a lot to fit in and think about over the weekend. One of the days will involve a 'real' group of students that the candidates will have to lead down a section of river. This part of the course can sometimes be quite stressful, particularly if the person being assessed isn't really up to the standard. I remember once having to step in and take over the party management of a group during the assessment of an person who seemed to have no group awareness or control at all. He was a fantastic paddler (A lot better than I will ever be) but wasn't really interested in improving the performance and ensuring the safety of others. He just wanted to turn his hobby into a way of earning money.

in the past there were a lot of be canoe and kayak coaches in the system. One way that most were fleshed was when the British Canoe Union introduced a compulsory up-date course at all coaches had to attend every three years. If you didn't attend you coaching certificate became invalid until to attended an up-date. In some ways this is like the 35 hours of CPD that we have to do as teachers - but do many school actually check to make sure that this CPD has been carried out? What if you had your GTC registration suspended if you didn't complete your CPD?