CPD Activities

My CPD activity over the past three years has been frequent and varied, reflecting both the mulit-faceted (and always changing) nature of the learning technologist role, and the way my specific role is evolving. This evolution is due partly to the changing environment in which i work but also the ways in which I am trying to expand my knowledge and experience, particularly into areas such as learning design

Below is a summary of the key CPD activities I have undertaking in the last three years, and in the following pages I expand on three pieces of work that have had a significant impact on the professional development:

Conference Attendance and participation.

Training and Qualifications

    • April 2017: I attended an internal training opportunity called 'Writing good Learning Outcomes; aligning assessment'.
    • April 2018: I attended a course called 'An intro to Cardiff University Project Management Framework'.
    • August 2018: I attended project management training and achieved both Prince2 Foundation and Prince2 Practitioner awards.

CMALT Assessment

Since gaining my CMALT accreditation, I have become a CMALT assessor, and this has been a satisfying experience, giving me a real appreciation of the range of roles and activity related to learning technology, and an insight into innovative practice across a range of UK institutions. Working with another assessor and moving from second assessor to lead assessor as I gained experience, I have also found the process of assessing and giving feedback challenging yet rewarding. I have assessed six portfolios thus far. I have also supported and mentored colleagues in the University with their CMALT portfolio writing. This also extended to myself and my colleague Dewi Parry attending a CMALT writing workshop at the University of South Wales, to share our experiences of writing and assessing CMALT portfolios.

ABC Learning Design

I have become familiar over the last few years with ABC Learning Design. Having attended an introductory session on ABC at Digifest 2017, I was pleased when colleagues in my team decided to explore the method and offer sessions to academic colleagues in the school. I involved myself with the planning and development of these sessions and helped support two sessions by facilitating a group at each of these events. I feel that I still have some way to go before being an expert in ABC, and I have some reservations about the general applicability of the model, but the experience has been really useful in terms of my wider development in pedagogy and learning design.

Learning Welsh

In September 2016 I embarked on a Welsh for Adults course within Cardiff University. Having not spoken Welsh since school I had a number of motives for wanting to learn the language:

    • It was immediately relevant (in small ways) to my job role that includes working on a bilingual distance learning programme.
    • The profile of the Welsh language is increasingly rising, and I felt learning Welsh would be useful for the future, particularly in Cardiff University.
    • Personal reasons, including the challenge of learning a new language, and a fondness for the language.

I have since successfully completed 3 levels of 'Welsh for Adults' learning, including passing a WJEC exam at each level. I may now be classed as a 'wlesh speaker' but this learning journey is ongoing, though I hope to be relatively fluent within a few years.