If you ever find that you may have a bit more free time, and you’re looking for something new, it may be a good idea to focus on your CPD by taking ownership of what you want to learn. It can be as simple as reviewing and reflecting on your own professional journey in the past few months or year, keeping a learning log and recording your professional thoughts the best way it suits you.
Looking at your overall career goals, you can make notes of what you need to do to achieve them. This could include further training, job or role progression in your duties. For shorter-term objectives, you can include within your CPD log things you can do today or tomorrow like having a chat with your manager about a new responsibility or finding out about a new system or process that a colleague uses.We can use online tools to aid us in our learning and development and even provide us with free online courses with certificates for participation. The good thing about CPD is that they allow individuals to focus on a specific area and acquire skills and knowledge in a relatively short period of time.
“Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think” – Albert Einstein.
If you haven’t heard, universities around the world are offering their courses online for free (or at-least partially free). These courses are collectively called as MOOCS or Massive Open Online Courses.
Duolingo – Free language app
Coursera – 600 free courses in over 20 subjects
Elevate – Brain training games
Google Arts and Culture – 360-degree virtual tours of historical places and landmarks, with factual information
Open Learn is a free learning platform by The Open University. With over 900 free courses to choose from, there is something for everyone
https://www.open.edu/openlearn/free-courses/full-catalogue
Reed.co.uk are well known as a job board for jobseekers and recruiters, but did you know they also offer courses? Free courses are added daily.
https://www.reed.co.uk/courses/free
Alison has over 1000 courses available, depending on your learning goal you can choose from a range courses from diplomas which are designed to give you extensive understanding in subject areas to learning paths which can be a range of niche courses to broaden your skill set.
https://alison.com/courses
Vision2learn offer a range of exciting online courses. The UK Government funds all courses, please click on the link to check your eligibility to ensure you are able to access your chosen course
https://www.vision2learn.net/courses