Developing me – the role of e-portfolios in staff continuing professional development Neil Currant, Lecturer in PDP & e- portfolio

Examples CMALT (professional accreditation) ITQ – NVQ for IT users PGCert Higher Education Practice LTA strategy consultation notesconsultation notes

Staff Story A story as told in staff story interviews. “Tell me about your use of the e- portfolio for …” It was the first time I've used a webfolio in PebblePAD for anything "real”.

The Story: Getting started Feels as daunting as this. It’s definitely been harder because it was from scratch.

Structure and management The e-portfolio helps to manage the process and provides structure it’s (the e-portfolio) offering them a structure that actually builds up their understanding of the ITQ competence assessment culture. ITQ assessor I think it is easier to manage it (large amounts of evidence) online in electronic form.

Building over time I was using (the e-portfolio) more as it should have been because I had the opportunity to record things as I went along... It will be easier. Keeping an ongoing record was easier

Finding the time However, with a busy work life how do we make it a habit to record our development activities. it doesn't come naturally at the moment... I think you need to be fairly methodical and well disciplined to keep it going; I'm not sure I've got that in me.

Helping Students By using e-portfolios for our own CPD we can better help students understand the process and products of their PDP. (my staff) will therefore be happy about promoting and encouraging students to use the e-portfolio because they will have had success with using it themselves. It’s easier to explain process to students if you have been through it yourself. manager

Moving Forward: Have a Purpose You need to record with a purpose or goal in mind, e.g. appraisal, professional accreditation, qualifications. I think I have learnt a lot more through having to use it for a particular project I'll probably use it more as this gives me the framework (purpose?) that's lacking at the moment.

Make it habitual Need a way of habitualising the use of e-portfolios, e.g. recording meetings, critical incidents. I will need something to actually make me sit down and do it.

Submission The format of submission affects take up. Encourage submission by e-portfolio. I found that because you have to put the final output into a Word document, I found it easier to work in Word because that is the format I needed to use. The presentation format has an influence. NTFS candidate

Just Do It. We did appraisals last year in the old way (paper) and I was horrendously late in getting the information back to them because I can’t stand writing on forms. I’m actually quite excited about the thought of doing appraisals this year. manager Nobody who used the e-portfolio for CPD would go back. I didn’t hesitate using PebblePad for my SEDA portfolio after doing the CMALT. I could have used anything. Educational developer