Welcome. This short screencast will give you an introduction to the website of the Scots Language Teachers CPD. You have made it to this website, the course website and I want to show you how to find your way around.

Once you've reached this landing page, go to course content, scroll down the page and see the different units of this course.

First of all go to course induction and tools where you’ll find the important bits and pieces you will need throughout the course.

Here you will see your study planner which is the course timetable and in there you will find direct links to the tutorials. For example, the tutorial Teams meeting rooms. You can also download this timetable which might be a good idea as a reminder.

Very important is the course guide. Please read this material and you can click your way through this, through the different pages of this guide. It will be a good time investment to read this, as it will give you a good introduction to how the course works and what you need to do when - so an important thing to remember.

Then also look at the course forum. This is the place where you’ll undertake lots of important activities that happen in this course; and first of all, please read the welcome message and post a quick introduction. Say who you are, what brought you here, what you're getting out of this course, or what you're looking to get out of this course also.

Subscribe to the course forum because that will be a good reminder for you as you’ll get all the information that you need from the forum by email. Please remember that.

Then also go to the induction activities. They are useful to show you where things are and what you do with them, so please do these as the first thing that you do in this course. Click your way through and you have lots of useful tips and tricks for getting started.

And last but not least, please have a look at the learning log and the reflective blog. The learning log is a place where you can take notes from anything that you find useful. In this course, simply click a new blog post and in the learning log only your tutor and yourself can read what you post. You do not have to get your tutor to read what you post there. This is your own note-taking tool. You do not have to use it, but if you want to it is there for you.

Importantly, the reflective blog is something that you will have to use. And this is the place where you’ll post your assessment and you reflect here on the outcomes of your work on the assessment tasks. This will be read by your tutor only and your tutor will comment on what you post there. So please make yourself familiar with these tools in your first section of the course. Then also have a look at the plagiarism information and the referencing guide because you will engage with some research.

Then look at Unit 1 for example. All units are structured in the same way. You go into this little book called Introduction and then work your way through and you see in these texts you have a next button that takes you to the next page. You have red links here that will take you to different places.

We want you to look at Unit 1. You will start off with considering whether Scott's is a language, how you define Scots, and then also we want you to do a kind of practical activity exploring the role of Scots in your immediate professional context.

And last but not least, I want to draw your attention to what is covered in activity three of Unit 1. This is what we call the input and we're here linking to the existing open course Scots language and culture and in each unit of your CPD, we offer you a choice of different units from this Scots language and culture course. And we want you to engage with some of the units in that course. Some of the units you find interesting and also interesting for your particular subject area. For example, you do not have to study these units in depth and in detail and can pick and choose what activities and what content from these units is of importance and interest to you. This course is always there and if you want to you can even take materials from that Scots language and culture open course into your classroom.

What you do here in the CPD is to think about how you can then teach what you learn in the open course in your own classroom.

And this is all to start with. Have fun and please be in touch if you're having any issues accessing any of the activities described here.

Return to Induction.