The increased hours of collegiate sessions for continuing professional development has led to some creative activities at Glenlee Primary, in South Lanarkshire.
The school’s CPD co-ordinator was struck by the number of staff who indicated a lack of IT expertise and those with advanced skills and capabilities. This sparked the idea for a computer buddy scheme where good practice and skills could be shared.
Dawn Wighton made an IT skills audit of the staff and this highlighted areas of ability and weakness. Those who required support could pinpoint three core areas to develop and others were asked if they would be a buddy.
Two buddying sessions were timetabled and staff took to the IT suite. The advantage was the variety of problems and issues that could be tackled. Little things such as how to create tables in Word, or create and change a border in Publisher, were resolved, as well as bigger challenges, such as how to download a file for classroom use on the whiteboard. In isolation these problems would not merit attendance on an IT course, but together, they resulted in a few hours’ quality learning.
Given how heavy CPD collegiate sessions can be, in terms of new policies, procedures and practices, any opportunities to be creative, practical and fun are welcomed.
