Embedding CPD, Reflective practice skills and Employability into Ambulance Technician Portfolios

On 29 July 2025, I co-delivered at the presentation 'Embedding CPD, Reflective practice skills and Employability into Ambulance Technician Portfolios' for the webinar theme 'Rapid Response Ready: Elevating Paramedic Practice and CPD with PebblePad'.

This webinar opportunity came my way from James Littlehales, Head of Customer Success Management EMEA, as one of the presenters had to pull out due to unfortunate circumstances.  As this was timely on some recent conversations with two paramedic lecturers, on making some improvements to the PebblePad CPD ePortfolio element of the Ambulance Technician Practice course.  I invited them to share their practice, which they haven't done in this format before, and future plans for improvements - I went onto leading on talking on a brief slide about the latter on potential plans with the Digital Curriculum Team.  Though this presentation is not about me/Digital Curriculum Team, but giving lecturers the opportunity to take centre stage to share, with the avenue to further our digital curriculum work.

Sara Ghafouri, Campaigns Marketing Manager - "...from NTU, we’ll hear from Lynne Thompson, Adam Clarke, and Daniel Scott-Purdy MSc(TEL) SFHEA SCMALT as they co-deliver a session on how PebblePad supports proficiency and professional development across a paramedic’s career."

Farai Pfende, Senior Lecturer in Learning Disabilities Nursing - "What stars you are. Registered to receive recording of this. Very exciting and innovative."

46 participants, including presenters, panellists and hosts.  It was really well-received and had good interaction.  Dare I say a bit fun ha.  I think it was a good experience for our lecturers and have gained new ideas as well.

Adam Clarke, Lecturer in paramedicine - "Cheers for that Dan, thanks for suggesting doing it too." 

Lynne Thompson - "We do not get involved but I quite enjoyed it in the end 🤣 if you get any other opportunities Dan happy to work with you too."

Nicola Sparkes, Customer Success Manager and Learning Consultant:

"Thank you for an enjoyable afternoon.  It was good to host your webinar this afternoon.  I found it really interesting to hear the varied ways that you are using PebblePad within Paramedic Science.

You all did a fantastic job at presenting and your practice is very relevant to all disciplines.

Many thanks for being willing to share your practice with others.

Best wishes for a fabulous Summer break."

Sara Ghafouri - "Really pleased with how it went, and you all did a great job of showcasing the work you have been doing and that clearly resonated with the audience."..."A big thanks to everyone for supporting this webinar and doing an amazing job of showing all the great things you’ve been working on! I know it’s going to inspire others who joined live and who also watch on demand."

I received a surprised complement from a colleague, who was also presenting, that used to work in our department.  When I explained our Digital Curriculum Team remit and induction process for students to build a positive relationship with PebblePad, in response to the question "Open to any of the presenters.  What onboarding support did you provide to help students use the PebblePad workbooks?"

• Andrew Kirke - "I think Daniel's underselling himself a little bit there. I worked with him very much at the beginning, NTU with this and the support. I think NTU, the health institute has a real benefit in having Daniel and his expanded department now, in supporting the students because the students really do have that availability of online support quite easily."
• Me - "Thank you, Andy."
  
  

Some presentation feedback:

• Shane - "That’s been a great webinar, thank you all for sharing your innovations and great Pebblegogy 😃"
• Ali - "Thank you to everyone on the panel. Such an insightful webinar, thank you so much for sharing.  👋 Loved it!"
• Alison Poot - "Great webinar everyone, thank you!"
• CMcCullagh - "Thank you very interesting"
• Rich Skyrme - "Thank you all - very interesting topics!"
• albertine - "Thanks very much! Very informative 🙂"

From seed to reap: our young iterative journey through developing immersive learning and VR experiences

Today myself and my colleague had the pleasure of delivering the presentation 'From seed to reap: our young iterative journey through developing immersive learning and VR experiences', to the Extended Reality in Education (XRE) Community of Practice, NHS England TEL Simulation and Immersive Technologies.  There were 85 members (including us as presenters, panellist and hosts) in attendance from healthcare to learning technologist professionals within healthcare education.  When it got to the Q&A there was a great variety of questions asked on implementation, application and technical aspects.  The response we received was very positive and impactful.  We acquired new contacts, questions and ideas to follow up with.  We both really enjoyed it and very happy to represent our department.  Chris Gay, Project Manager – Simulation and Immersive Technologies, is a brilliant host.  Below is our presentation and feedback.

Feedback:

• "...the excellent work that Dan and Godson have done..."
• "Many thanks all , very useful session 🙏"
• "Thank you for sharing your experiences Daniel Scott-Purdy and Godson Uma."
• "Thank you Dan and Godson!"
• "Fabulous session, thanks everyone!"
•  "Great session, thank you."
• "Thanks for the great presentation, well done."
• "Many thanks, very interesting session."
• Lucia Vazquez Bonome - "It was a pleasure attending the session this morning, thank you both for your insightful presentation. I found it very helpful."
• David Mangoro - "Thanks for sharing in the meeting today."
• Jayne Brown, Professor of Health Care Professions - "Congratulations both, a really great presentation."
  
  

Evaluation data:

Chris Gay:

"Dear Dan and Godson,

Thank you so much for taking the time to present your XR meeting session, and for all the hard work that went into planning it. I have attached a letter of thanks for you, which includes some of the feedback we gathered at the end of each session. I hope this is useful for your own CPD.

As you'll see from the feedback, it was really valuable and enjoyable for the group to hear from you.

Thank you again for doing this, I am sure the XR meeting would be delighted to have you back to present again in the future!"

Presentation:

Presentation recording accessible via NHS Learning Hub:

• Extended Reality in Education (XRE) Community of Practice 15/07/2025

Elevating scenario-based learning through Virtual Reality immersive wall suites

On 10 June 2025, myself, Cherylene Camps, Senior Lecturer in Paramedicine and Godson Uma, Digital Curriculum Support and Developer delivered the session 'Elevating scenario-based learning through Virtual Reality immersive wall suites', to NTU colleagues for the School of Social Sciences Showcase 2025 Day 2.  The session was well-received and created much rich discussion and ideas.  The two students who recently qualified from their BSc paramedicine course, that shared their experiences was a particular standout - so I am glad that I suggested this so the audience could hear their views directly and better represent their perspectives.  Our presentation is below.

NTU researcher - "#belonging at the NTU Social Sciences Showcase today.  Privileged to see the incredible work on...and the innovative VR development from Daniel Scott-Purdy and his team."

Senior Lecturer, Course Lead for the BA (Hons) Childhood and Education Studies (online) top-up degree, Nottingham Institute of Education - "I am so impressed by the incredible work you are engaged in and would be keen to learn more.  During the 2024/25 School Showcase event, I had the great pleasure of chairing a session led by Daniel Scott-Purdy and colleagues from IHAP.  The session (focused on immersive learning) was brought to life through some outstanding examples and brief demonstrations of how the immersion suite works in practice.  It was further enhanced through the contributions by students who had used the suite for practical exercises.  The team were passionate about this work and it was evident the students and staff had gained a great deal from this exciting learning resource facilitated through a team of experienced development staff who had bought the practical exercises to life.  A quintessential feature of the presentation was the teams recognition of areas for growth in the use of these resources.  The excitement, enthusiasm and expert knowledge of digital learning resources was bought to life by a team who are evidently hyper-focused on how we can work smarter through the use of digital technologies.  There are a wealth of opportunities for using such resources across different programmes and Daniel was gracious (both in the presentation and afterwards) in discussing ways in which the Childhood team might employ such tools." 

 

Reviewing a bit of immersive education literature

This is my output of a formative assessment of my Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (PGCLTHE).  Review of 2 research papers, well book chapters in my case.  Following my teaching observation in April and teaching philosophy in January.

I realise I am a bit over the word count, which was set at 1200 words, but that is because I put a lot of time and effort into reading the chapters to be better informed, which was the primary learning objective for myself, and I wanted this to be a source of information for later use.  There was further potential for criticality and synthesising but I had to stop somewhere, it's only for a formative assessment.  However, it meant there's more appetite for further reading and potentially leading my own research in this area of my practice.

I received the following overall feedback.

"Daniel, this is excellent.  You’ve taken a topic that is current to the sector, relevant to your school, and challenging!  It’s a very impressive response.

Strengths

• The criticality you offer is excellence, speaking to the limitations of the articles not only in what they offer but sensitively to the context of your practice.
• The use of extended literature is something that you will be able to draw upon in your future assignments, including the written submission and professional conversation.

Areas for development

• You’ve already identified your biggest challenge – keeping to the word count.  As valuable as your insights are, I really want to stress how great this piece is!, you also need keep within the boundaries of the assignment.  You’re not penalised here but you could be further on.

An excellent submission and a real pleasure to read.

Please get in touch if you want to discuss this further."

Building a picture of H5P usage and application

For one of this year's IHAP Digital Learning Strategy objectives, I produced the following report to help build a picture of H5P usage and application across our department, and to support further objectives to increase scaffolded online asynchronous learning in our courses and modules.

This was planned to be discussed with my line manager, the Head of Department, to plan how we can take the findings forward and promote the report further.  Through a separate one to one meeting with the Principal Lecturer in Paramedicine, in a ad hoc manner, I showed the report which spurred on enthusiastic conversations on it's potential.  He said they would discuss this with the Head to invite me to a future Senior Leadership Team meeting to walkthrough and discuss.  However in my catch up later on the same day with the Head, she also agreed and invited me to attend the SLT meeting on 24 April.

In the meeting on 24 April I shared the original non-anonymised report, which enabled SLT to identify their staff and their practice.  However, I have since anonymised it (below) to share widely across the department through various committee meetings.  The report was very well-received by SLT and we had much insightful discussions, such as confirming the following outcomes:

• 1.  Focus on H5P
• Focus promotion and support on specific content types, interactive learning and presentation of information.
• Plan and promote further my successful and impactful H5P Retreat workshops.
• Discussed the need for conducting more module learning room audits.
• 2.  Scope out training needs on interactive learning tools such as Padlet and underutilised Microsoft Office (curate self-service resources and bespoke workshops).
• Consideration for Principal Lecturers on how they can get lecturers to come to us.  Ensuring accountability through their course and team meetings and one to ones.
• 3.  Start with MSc Nursing - we concluded the meeting my agreeing to meet to discuss the following on 22 May, utilising our exemplar H5P work and NOW web pages:
• What we want as a minimum in each module.
• What modules we review first in terms of digital resources.
• Think about a template to aid Module leaders.

How to create an online immersive learning experience

As featured in our Digital Curriculum Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Menu.  On the 5 November 2024 and 12 March 2025, me and my colleague delivered our new session 'How to create an online immersive learning experience'.  As written, it aimed to:

"Learn how to create your own online immersive learning experience using H5P’s user-friendly Virtual Tours (360), with available authentic panoramic 360° images.  By the end of this brief workshop you will have created a basic online immersive experience to further develop.  Little technical know-how required."

As the School of Social Sciences has an objective to develop staff digital skills in the production of high quality digital immersive learning, which was influenced by my work in this area.  The School's Digital Development Group has recognised this workshop as an offering to support with this objective.  Therefore, the March workshop was opened widely for the School of Social Sciences colleagues to attend.  Though specifically designed for IHAP staff, the optional invitation was offered fully online to accommodate additional people.

Some slides were adapted to include some School-wide resources.

We received the following feedback:

• Lynne Thompson - "Can I say, Dan and Godson this is great. I've always wanted to do that and never really been able to. So just walking us through it, it's been absolutely fantastic. So thank you...I'm really happy."
• Lynne Thompson - "...it has been great."
• Nicola Payne - "I agree Lynne it is great to know how to do it now!"
• Rubby Legbedze - "It all worked well, I felt like a magician..."
• Rubby Legbedze  - "This is really good, all sorted. thank you"
• Ian Jones - "My NOW LR's will be transformed...🤩"
• Sarah Buglass - "Thanks Dan and Godson! A great session"
• Jo Mcfadden - "...thanks Dan and Godson."
• Moses Mukuru - "Thanks Dan and Godson."

EDIT: On 16 July 2025, I ran this workshop for members of the PGCert Café, Centre for Academic Development and Quality.  People, like me, working towards their non-apprenticeship pathway Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (PGCLTHE).

• Lauren Martin, Lecturer, Design and Digital Arts - "How would one make their own 360 images?  Do you need a special camera?  I would like to take one of my workroom to show students what a real-life making workroom looks like."
• Giuseppe Belli, Lecturer, Design and Digital Arts - "Yeah, we've used 3D cameras to do virtual tour set designs, but I'd like to know if there's an accessible app that we can use that that does the same thing there rather than a 3D camera.  You know things that we have with us."
• Charlotte Marshall, Senior Lecturer [PGCLTHE], Centre for Academic Development and Quality - "I'm just trying to think how could I use it in my practice?  I'm so inspired but I don't know where it would fit.  That's where you're on."
• Me - "I'm quite the idea machine.  But I'm thinking some thoughts already...could be around inclusive practice or something...To evaluate a room and how inclusive it could be."
• Charlotte Marshall - "Totally doing that.  Thanks Dan."
• Charlotte Marshall - "I love the idea of the inclusive classroom, Dan.  That's like, again, blow my mind, really thinking that would be so good to do."
• Lauren Martin - "I just think it's really useful.  Thanks Dan, for popping this together.  Just because there's lots of real world situations we'd love to take our students, but we've got 44 or 45 students per year group and we can't take them all to a theatre backstage.  We can't take them all to a costume workroom.  It's just not practical.  But this could be the next best thing because...Then at least they get a little taster."
• Lauren Martin - "I've got so many ideas now."
• Charlotte Marshall - "My mind's blown and I'm just like over the summer.  I'm totally going to do that because the next not for your cohort.  Sorry, you lot, the next cohort.  I'm already thinking like that inclusive practise would be a really great way of thinking about inclusive practise from an entirely different angle and doing something really meaningful...So thank you, Dan.  So, so much."
• Rikus Ferreira - "Great thanks Daniel!"

Revisiting my teaching philosophy

For a formative assessment, submitted in January, of studying towards the Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (PGCLTHE).  I had the opportunity to revisit my teaching philosophy, something I attempted to do back in 2019 through my blog post 'Facilitating my teaching philosophy', where I was fascinated to know what my position was after a few years qualifying in teaching.  However, after understanding more about a teaching philosophies purpose and principles, I have learned much more about what actually one is, which is a statement - not really sure what I thought it was before.  Anyway, here is what I learned, pondered and developed in a limited word count.  I might reassess my philosophy of educational technology in the future...

There is emphasis about my working class roots which I talk more about in my blog post 'What working class means to me'.

I received the following overall feedback.

 

"Thank you Daniel for submitting your teaching philosophy assessment. This is a great starting point for you and I really enjoyed reading this submission. It is an open and honest account, which provides a detailed insight into the influences on your approaches to learning and teaching.

Strengths

• Clear NTU context provided.
• Good links to own experiences and how these have influenced your teaching.
• Really interesting to see that you were able to reference yourself within this assessment – demonstrates a wider understanding and interest in the topic.
• Overall you have done well to support this assessment with relevant literature.
• Good discussion around teaching philosophies and how they align to your practice.
• Evidence of a commitment to inclusive teaching.

Areas for Development

• Include specific information about what you intend to develop within your practice going forward – what future goals/aspirations do you have?
• Ensure your referencing is consistent.
• Continue to think about how you can evidence impact within your work – how do you know your approaches are effective? This will serve you well as you progress through the course

 

We recommend referring back to this assessment (and feedback) as a tool to support your Written Submission – one of the elements of the End Point."

Related to this topic, in the 'About you' section of my PebblePad course workbook.  There was a question that asked "What does good teaching look like?  Consider some of your own experiences and take some time to reflect on what you think good teaching looks like."  I responded briefly with the following which is relevant to share here also.

Firstly, I feel that the teacher/educator is very personable, friendly and supportive and has a good measure of humour.  All helps to help me feel comfortable and engaged.  Other things I feel are noteworthy to me are:

• I feel included and comfortable which brings about presence and active responses from me.
• My ideas and responses are valid, even if they are not timely, they might be in the future.
• I am encouraged to develop my thinking and draw out previous experiences - which helps with my self-worth and confidence in the group.
• I have adequate opportunities to participate asynchronously to support my reflective nature and process my thoughts, especially on complex information which are usually a lot slower.
• I am praised, within reason and not for the sake of it, for my contributions.  This helped me feel valued and present.

IHAP immersive learning & Virtual Reality design framework

Following up my evaluation last January 'Assessing the current position of the IHAP VR walls'.  In July 2024, I put together a process that aims to enable academics and clinical skills technicians to engage, co-collaborate with the Digital Curriculum Team and guide on co-designing, ideating and prototyping on immersive learning design conversations and production.  All to support scenario, simulation or role play-based learning designs and develop appropriate digital resources, soundscapes, meaningful 360° footage etc.  This should be seen as the starting point for approaching immersive learning to ensure feasibility and success for all involved.  Below is an extract from the rationale:

"Overall, there is not large uptake of the VR suites.  By way of building my capacity to support lecturers and clinical skills technicians to use our VR immersive rooms more effectively.  With the view of offering meaningful support and collaborative approaches.  I designed a survey to gather insights into lecturers and technicians technical and practice abilities in using the technology, including wider information on attitudes and blockers helping to identify specific knowledge gaps and areas for improvement.  22 responses were received by 31 January 2024.

As I suspected, it is evident that the following is lacking, in no particular order:

• Curriculum alignment
• Protected development time
• Room size
• Immersive pedagogy

Technical know-how (revisit basics, continue training in-person and hands-on, with time to cover basic troubleshooting, finding and selecting appropriate media, continue to conclude with pedagogical conversation)

To specifically address the gap of immersive learning pedagogy expertise, as ideally this needs to be addressed first to support the curriculum alignment issue.  I created a process to join up, engage staff and increase co-collaborative uptake of our facilities and resource creation and deployment to support the design of immersive learning experiences.

Moreover, I am sometimes asked ‘what scenarios do we have for the VR room?’  I broadly know some of the things that occur in there, but not always the specific details of the scenarios.  That’s a knowledge gap that I am hoping to address through this new process."

Therefore, I produced this framework to respond to the development of immersive learning pedagogy, and to promote and engage this with academics and support objectives as part of the rebooted simulation group - a joined up process.

I developed the framework through key/headline decision points that need to be made, whilst aligning loosely to a learning design methodology, Gilly Salmon's Carpe Diem, and including a theoretical reference to the ADDIE model.  There are hidden slides with details on guiding consultation, pedagogical underpinnings and developing narratives.

This had been reviewed by my colleague Digital Curriculum Support and Developer, Clinical Skills Technicians and Department Manager (who line manages the technicians).  It is currently being used in some small-scale projects to road test and is being actively promoted in Management Committee and course team meetings as part of the new governance structure.  Hence why it has taken some time to start getting it going, as the new meeting structures were only announced at the department's July 2024 away day.  As the framework is new and being implemented I'll of course obtain feedback and make necessary changes to it.

This is being reviewed by the 'TILT® Virtual Reality and Immersive Learning practice and scholarship group' and I have showcased to people beyond IHAP, of which I received a couple of comments:

Paul Hamilton, Principal Lecturer (Criminology) - "Useful thanks".

Simon Cauvain, Head of Department (Social Work) - "Brilliant!  Thanks so much Dan.  No doubt speak again soon."