Media Library of Teaching Skills (MLoTS)

Hello Professional Development Colleagues,

You may already be familiar with the Media Library of Teaching Skills (MLoTS), a free, online collection of professional development videos for adult basic skills (including ESOL/ESL) teachers and professional developers. If not, there's  brief description below.

I am writing for two reasons. You may have noticed that it has been some time since we have added new authentic classroom videos made by videographer Owen Hartford and me. Owen has retired, and is no longer able to make and edit authentic classroom videos. I remain interested in helping to make authentic classroom videos for professional development, but lack Owen's skill set, especially his extraordinary editing skills. If you are an education videographer, or know of a videographer, who may be interested in this (largely volunteer) work, please let me know.

I am also interested in adding to the MLoTS website links to others' adult basic education professional development videos. Please look at our collection of links to others' videos and if you are aware of professional development videos already available on the web whose links I might consider adding, please let me know.

What is the Media Library of Teaching Skills (MLoTS) ?

MLoTS is a collection of free adult education (ABE, ESOL/ESL/ELL and other pre-college basic skills for adults) professional development videos. Think of it as a "video window" on other adult education teachers' classrooms. These videos can be used by professional developers for face-to-face, blended or distance learning courses or workshops. They can also be used by individual teachers on their own or in small groups, for example, at their programs. The videos are short, ranging from about 4 minutes to 15 minutes, and are actual lessons recorded in authentic classrooms. These are not designed as "best practices" videos, although some do use best practices, but instead are designed to engage teachers in looking at other teachers' practice and also thinking about their own practices, ideally in face-to-face or online real-time meetings with colleagues. Our videos also appear on our MLoTS YouTube channel, but that does not include the supporting documents, only the videos.

One intriguing way to discuss these videos is to watch them online in real time with other teachers in your program, your community, or your state using Google Hangouts or other software that allows teachers to log on at the same time, view a video together, and then discuss it. Typically this kind of discussion, including watching the video, takes from 20 to 45 minutes.

In addition to the videos my colleague and I have made of classes in Massachusetts and Vermont, many of which are aligned to state adult basic education standards in those states, we also have MLoTS web pages with links by category (Basic Literacy, ESOL/ESL,Family Literacy, Integrating Technology, Math, Reading and writing) to others' professional development videos, some of which are focused on actual classrooms and some not, but all of which focus on adult basic skills education.

David J. Rosen

djrosen123@gmail.com