How Did It Go?

Friday turned out to be a "snow day" for my district.  I was anxious to see what impact that might have on the number of teachers who have completed the course for credit.  I did have two colleagues send it out to their campuses as well, so we had 4 campuses to try to get a few teachers to participate.

As of this writing, four teachers have watched the video and completed the reflection form.  None of them from my campus.  :(   But the feedback given by these teachers and the experience of putting it all together is helping in the  next venture - PD in your PJs.

I spent the snow day (there was no snow or ice - it was just cold) going through other districts virtual PD offerings and watching webinars offered to teachers on different websites.  I have taken those ideas, the feedback from the teachers and my own thinking and started to create a roadmap to our latest attempt to be responsive to teacher's needs.   So far I am calling it PD in your PJs.   Tomorrow the others ITSs that have shown interest in this topic and meeting via Google Hangouts to make some decisions about times, topics and format.   The initial launch date is set for February 25th.

Lunch and Learn

I have been pondering virtual PD for a while and began a venture in my district with the other ITSs to start the
process.   We began a few months ago offering a series we call "Lunch and Learns" run through Google Hangouts on Air.  Twice a month a panel of Instructional Technology Specialists discuss a given topic at lunch time.    The audience is other Instructional Technology Specialists in the district.  So far we have had 5 of these and have learned a lot each time.

The next Lunch and Learn is this Thursday and the topic is Google Drive Extensions.   Previous episodes have been archived in the district YouTube account for future reference.    They are full of good info and really need a larger audience.  This past one we invited the librarians to join us and will continue to do so.  I am also hoping that the instructional coaches will join in soon.

Technical issues being the one hardest to overcome.  When Google says try back later there is not a lot of troubleshooting you can do.   As part of the process we are writing a manual on how to conduct these sessions and the responsibilities of each role.  I am hoping this is something that we can hand off to others in out district to help them do something similar for their departments.  We have  more to go this year and I am looking forward to learning more with each one.