In the pICTure

It’s been a while … September 15, 2014

creative commons licensed (BY-NC) flickr photo by scottkellum: http://flickr.com/photos/devoinregress/3505849421

Phew! That took a while!
Just completed and submitted my application for CMALT (Certified Member of the Association for Learning Technology) status. Developed and administered by ALT, the scheme seeks to enable those working with learning technologies to:

• have their experience and capabilities certified by peers;
• demonstrate that they are taking a committed and serious approach to their professional development.

This involves assembling a portfolio of evidence illustrating capability and experience across a range of ‘Core areas’ like ‘Operational issues’ and ‘Learning, teaching and assessment.’ This is then submitted for assessment by other holders of CMALT who will judge the portfolio against the assessment criteria. This is a process I’ve not experienced before, where you’re producing a body of work to fulfil a set of criteria which will be judged by people you’ve never met.  Unlike traditional assessments where you’re responding to specific prompts, here you’re submitting evidence of your own choosing. You have the choice of which aspects of your work to focus upon and which examples to use. There’s plenty of guidance available through the CMALT support site and as a member, you have access to the members forum where you can seek advice from the community. I was also grateful for those members who submitted their portfolios openly online, thereby providing examples of the kinds of standards to aim for. In particular I’m grateful to David Hopkins for curating this list of CMALT members who have done just that and to Sarah Horrigan for posting a Google site template, structured for assembling the portfolio.

Time consuming though it may be, I rather perversely enjoy activities like this. Reflecting on previous experiences and projects with which you were involved, often benefits from a little time and distance, so undertaking a review in this way sometimes brings fresh insights. Caught up in the day-to-day business of the current workload, we perhaps don’t reflect back as often as we might like.

Assembling illustrative examples of my practice and the outcomes of various endeavours brought to light a shortcoming in my online presence. I have this reflective blog, Practically In the pICTure where I share more practical ideas and 366Web2.0 where I explore the affordances of Web 2.0 tools. (And a bunch of other creation and curation accounts of course) What I don’t have is an online portfolio of examples of resources I develop. No self-respecting artist, designer, architect, coder(?) would fail to maintain a portfolio of their work; why should educators be any different? In these days of performance management and professional development planning, keeping a portfolio of evidence seems a smart thing to do, alongside the benefits mentioned previously. There’s also the notion that publishing your portfolio (like the CMALT members mentioned previously) might provide inspiration or support for colleagues in similar positions to you. It requires no extra effort and you might just make a difference to someone … or the students with whom they work. It’s got to be worth it, surely?

If it’s of any interest, my portfolio can be found here, but should carry the health warning that it has yet to be assessed. Maybe you have a comment or two to offer?