Dear Colleagues,
We are almost at the mid year point - and it's time to reflect on where we've been. Many of us have struggled with developing and implementing successful professional development that reaches the field where many teachers are employed part time. Many of us have struggled to fit more PD in our days in order to meet the growing demands of our students / programs. How are you delivering professional development? Or, How are you participating in PD? What makes a PD opportunity 'worth' your time?
Our goal as members of this community of practice is to both learn from each other and share practical ideas, so I'd like to get a conversation going about issues faced in developing or participating in professional development.
Share your questions and get feedback from your peers, or even share some of the innovative approaches you've taken lately that have been effective.
What are your experiences in PD this year? Where will the remainder of the year take you? Tell us about it.
Looking forward to learning together,
Sincerely,
Kathy Tracey
@Kathy_Tracey
Comments
Hello all,
I'd love for the cohorts I facilitate to have online spaces to asynchronously share/get ideas and resources. I'm finding Google Sites to be a bit cumbersome because it seems I need to embed a discussion forum, and I've embedded Diigo and a log in for all to share websites and such. Folks need to sign in to post to each of these, and I'd rather have it be login-free, no muss, no fuss. (Feel free to visit if you like.) Weebly forums don't require a login, but don't allow attachments, and have a limit as to the number of responses to a reply. I'd appreciate hearing your suggestions.
Many thanks in advance!
Diana Satin
Why We Do What We Do? Watch This Video!Training and Technical Assistance Coordinator
English for New Bostonians
105 Chauncy Street, 4th Floor
Boston, MA 02111
(617) 982-6865
englishfornewbostonians.org
english-works.org
Hi, Diana. The site you posted is very attractive. Instead of Google Drive, you are using Google sites. Is that the one that you say is cumbersome? It allowed me entry to discussions without signing in using the "Quick and Dirty" link. Apparently, that link goes to another site. Would that discussion be directly linked in the Google Sites content you have posted?
A couple of questions: (1) what kind of interaction are you envisioning among your cohorts and (2) what type of feedback would you like from us in this forum?
Nice work!
Leecy
Hi Diana, we are using a private Google+ community to share resources for our PD group. The community allows us to post comments, links, pictures, and polls. So far we like the space because it's very visual (see attached screenshot). Google+ does require an account. However many of our educators are on Gmail and it's easy for them to toggle over to G+ if they are already logged in. I personally advocate for logins as it allows participants to see and respond to each other by name. I'm happy to chat about our experience with G+ community and how we are using it if you are interested.
Hi Alecia,
Can you give us some more information on how your users feel about managing one more site? How much time does it take to manage this site? What tech skills do you need to manage it?
I'd love to learn more about this.
Kathy
It's been awhile, but we used a discussion forum with a freeforums.net address to try to hold post-workshop follow-up discussions around the GED transition. I think we set up those with ProBoards: https://www.proboards.com/
They allowed attachments, and while there might be restrictions, we didn't hit any.
I've also looked at Lefora as a tool for embedding discussion forums into some distance learning modules, but ultimately didn't go that route: https://www.lefora.com/
--Hillary