Just like everyone else in the world, Greenville County Schools has summer professional development for its teachers. Summer Academy encompasses the entire month of July and provides a smorgasbord of learning opportunities for the teachers, administrators, staff and substitutes of GCS.
During Summer Academy I like to connect up with governmental agencies such as the Library of Congress or the National Archives and Records Administration in an effort to provide professional development through videoconference. Both the Library of Congress and the National Archives are great resources for Americans in general, but they are a treasure trove for educators who sometimes struggle to find reputable resources on the Internet.
This summer I chose to work with the Library of Congress. I contacted Judy Graves at the LOC and we offered four total sessions for participants:
- Introduction to LOC.gov – Take a guided tour of the Library of Congress Web site! This tour will help you take advantage of the wonderful primary sources you will discover. Sample the Library’s services and resources, including Ask a Librarian, Today in History, Portals to the World, and more!
- Laurels and Lyrics: Poetry Resources at the Library of Congress – The Library of Congress Web site is a rich resource for poetry lovers. This program introduces the Library’s many poetry offerings – including web guides on U.S. poets laureate, webcasts of poetry readings, exhibits on famous poets, and of course, poems themselves – to educators and members of the general public wishing to explore American poetry and its presence in everyday life.
- Sleuthing with Maps – Maps are windows to the cultural, political, and physical world around us. They capture a space in time and define it according to parameters set by the mapmaker for an intended audience. Learn to explore historical maps and discover the surprises they yield.
We offered the Introduction to LOC.gov twice and the other two, Laurels and Lyrics and Sleuthing with Maps once. Judy led the Introduction to LOC.gov both days, Peter Armenti led the Poetry workshop and Ed Redmond led the Map workshop. All the workshops were well received and the participants loved the presenters. A complete listing of videconference workshops delivered through video from the LOC can be found here.
If you’ve read any of the previous posts from this blog you know we do a lot with video in our district. While we do a lot of virtual field trips and school-to-school collaborations, we don’t do a lot of PD through video that originates from the district itself. We do the annual connections with the LOC or the Archives, but we are still working to incorporate video into some of our PD offerings. We have Cisco WebEx in the district and my goal is to take some of the more broad and informational meetings and to deliver them through WebEx this year.
Cathy Hale, our Elementary Math Academic Specialist, delivered 1st Grade PD on Common Core Math Standards through video. We had endpoints out at four sites throughout the district to reduce the travel time and distance for our teachers and connected the four sites with our central studio through our Cisco 4501 MCU. We are looking to continue this Common Core Math PD with 2nd Grade during the 2012-2013 school year.
If you’re doing any PD through video and you have comments to share or you have a question about how PD can be delivered through video, leave a comment below.
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