Pre-Service Teachers & Professional Development: Virtual Options (Part II)

from Edudemic.com

As mentioned in an earlier post, I'm hoping to do a better job encouraging my students, who are pre-service teachers, to become more involved in professional development. My first year in my education program, I had the good fortune to attend the annual meeting of the TCTE, and it changed my life. Besides giving me a different perspective on education, it made me feel like a professional who was part of something bigger than myself. For this reason, and for the reasons mentioned in the other post, I want my students to have the opportunity to experience professional development before they enter the classroom. However, I realize that, as students, their time and funds are limited. Consequently, this post is going to provide some ideas on ways students can participate in professional development using social media and other virtual tools. Not only does this provide a more convenient and more affordable alternative to attending in-person professional development events, but it also shows students that professional development is only a click away.

Twitter (for chats and more) - Despite my reluctance to use other forms of social media (such as Facebook and Instagram), I am a devoted fan of Twitter. One of my favorite things about it is that it makes a great platform for professional development because of its popularity as a platform for free professional development chats for many different groups and interests. For information on participating in a chat as well as a listing of the educational chats and when they meet, Cybrary Man's page is an indispensable resource. Education Week also has an article that offers a concise argument for the worth of chats and a streamlined beginner's guide. Finally, Edudemic has a great teacher's guide to Twitter, complete with a great infographic of education-related hashtags

Another great aspect about Twitter is that it provides an easy and approachable way of connecting with other teachers and creating a professional network. By having a Twitter account, you can get the updates from others in the field. Having these connections can be helpful in keeping up with the latest goings-on in education, and they can provide some moral uplift or some needed inspiration.

Webinars - Nothing can duplicate the experience of attending a great education conference in person: the excitement of being with hundreds (or thousands) of other educators, the thrill that comes with talking to attendees and presenters in person, the insanity of the exhibition hall (at least at NCTE). However, conferences can also be time-consuming, exhausting, and expensive. That is where webinars can be useful, since they provide an easier and more affordable option to conference travel. Rather than going to a physical conference, attendees register for a webinar and use a computer to log into the webinar at a given time. As an added bonus, all of the webinars I've attended archive the presentation so you can watch it later. This way, if you get called away from your computer (or if you have to miss the presentation altogether), you can still access the material.

Like Twitter chats, there are a lot of options out there for webinars. They can range from an hour to almost an entire day (Edumodo and SummerTeen lasted quite a while). They can also range in price; while many of them are free, some are only free to members of a particular group, and others require you to pay a fee. However, in most cases, the fee is cheaper than conference registration, and you don't have the added cost of travel and lodging.

There are lots of different groups that host webinars. One place to start looking is through your professional organization (like NSTA or NCTE). Additionally, education organizations like ASCD and Folger Shakespeare also offer webinars on occasion.

Professional Newsletters - Keeping abreast of education in the news is important, but it can also be overwhelming. Even with tools like Twitter that can deliver some of the news to you, there is too much to consume on your own. Additionally, it can be time consuming to check the education sections on different websites and in different publications. Consequently, signing up for free newsletters on education can take the guesswork and the legwork out of the equation. Some of my favorite newsletters include:

• ASCD SmartBrief
• NCLE (National Council of Literacy Education) SmartBrief
• Edutopia's weekly newsletter
• Education Week newsletters (this one has lots of options)
• Folger's Bard Notes

Another option would to use a site/service (like Feedly, Inoreader, or CommaFeed) to consolidate education news and topics from different sources.

Google Hangouts - This service from Google lets up to 9 people participate in a videochat, and I can see it being used for a number of different activities related to professional development. Beyond being a place where participants can meet and discuss their teaching experiences, this could also let participants select their own topics and run their own virtual professional development. Having a discussion focused on a specific topic or problem (such as bullying, classroom management, or assessment) or a book club meeting for a professional text are only a few ways that Google Hangout could be used for education PD. For more information on how it can be used in education, visit Cybrary Man's excellent page of resources.

This list is by no means exhaustive, so please feel free to add your own ideas in the comments! I'll be tackling options for in-person professional development students can do in a future post; if you have a question about that, please leave a it in the comments section, and I will do my best to answer it.