Planning Your Development

With changes to the teacher evaluation process, especially the emphasis on continued development and training, an opportunity exists to to take the requirement of continuing development and turn it in to a powerful personal growth mechanism. In some districts, including ACS, teachers have been given the opportunity to make decisions regarding the professional development that is most closely connected with individualized plans as well as areas of growth identified in the evaluation process. Technology makes many of these choices "any time, any pace, any place" options, another way that control of the process is in the hands of the educator. As always, feel free to arrange training or assistance with me for any of the opportunities below or additional topics that are of interest and value to you. 

Maximizing Google

Google hosts an online training and development center that consists of 5 modules, completed at a personal pace. The modules include exams which, if passed with a score of 80%, will earn you a Google Apps For Education Individual Certificate. While the training and exams are completed individually, a cohort of colleagues work poking together could turn the training into a creative process opportunity. For additional information, or o begin your training, visit http://edutraining.googleapps.com/

Featured Apps

iTunes University provides more than just courses for students. Selections for professional development includes several state education departments and universities, as well teacher and district created materials. As a testament to the power of this training tool, even ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) has a developed a channel of professional development resources on iTunes that includes webinars, archived conference presentations, author interviews and video profiles of educators. Down load the app today and get started using the introductory video. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F4Q4FowaqRg

Once you become comfortable with the format, make a plan to create your own course material in iTunesU!

Getting the Most Out of Your Learning Platform

Both Edmodo and Moodle have great training support in the form of docs and videos. 

Moodle: official training start page http://docs.moodle.org/24/en/Main_page. 

An important thing to remember is that support tailored specifically to platform. For instance, ACS is currently on 

2.4, so help docs and YouTube video tutorials should be specific for 2.4.

Edmodo has a training page that can be accessed after creating an account. There is a blog, documents and 

video tutorials. Wile these are great starting points, don't hesitate to book collaboration and training time for

Instructional design as well as helpful tips. https://support.edmodo.com/home#teacher

Twitter Friday Follow

With the blog  focused on development, the recommendation can only be @ascd. As outlined above, this non-profit organization is focused on development of teachers with a new focus on technology and digital resources. Tweets are usually sharing of resources, publications and reminders for webinars and other training opportunities.

Library News

Often, teachers either don't know, or forget, that school libraries have professional collections. From content specific resources in the collection to teacher training material on best practices, classroom management, Socratic circles and reading and writing in the content areas. Professional reading and application of the knowledge could easily be considered personal PD. Visit your friendly Teacher Librarian today to find that perfect book to compliment your development plan.