December's Free Education Professional Development

First off, I apologize for being absent for the past month. Between the usual school-related craziness that comes with November, the NCTE conference, the Thanksgiving holidays, and a cold have all conspired to keep me busy and away from the blog.

That being said, I'm in denial that December is upon us. However, even as the end of the semester comes hurtling towards us (I have two more weeks of classes and a week of finals/frantic grading), there are still professional development opportunities to be had. Here is a sampling of the free offerings for those in education.

The Association for Middle Level Educators (AMLE) has two upcoming webinars:

• December 2 at 3:00 pm ET is "Making Disciplinary Literacy Work in the Middle Level for the Common Core and More!"
• December 10 at 3:00 pm ET is "Shout It Loud: Tools and Apps for Amplifying Student Voices through Formative Assessment"

ASCD has a number of webinars in December, including:

• December 9 at 3:00 pm ET - "Close Reading: Teaching the Comprehension Skills of Text Analysis and Evaluation"
• December 11 at 3:00 pm ET - "What is PD Online, and How Can It Support My Professional Development?"

edWeb.net has a jam-packed schedule for the first half of December with webinar topics that range from using film in the history classroom to financial literacy for kids.

PBS LearningMedia is offering a webinar on December 2 at 6:00 pm ET entitled "Bringing Lessons to Life with Digital Primary Sources." This is done in conjunction with the Library of Congress, and I can't recommend this highly enough. At my first NCTE conference, I had the opportunity to attend a one-day workshop done by the Library of Congress, and it was very useful. At my most recent NCTE conference, the LoC had a booth in the exhibit hall to inform teachers about some great new resources available online.