Live, Real-Time Professional Development

Webinar #1: Using Student Response Systems: Creative Applications, Advanced Features and Tips for Getting Started

Key Learnings: This was a webinar event held by my company and it was hosted by one of our distinguished educators, Dr. Christopher Willey of the University of Surrey in the UK. The main topics were creative applications such as peer instruction and game-based learning. I learned that educators are able to use clickers technology to conduct think-pair-share type of activities in their classrooms. I also learned that game-based learning with clickers added a value to classes by increasing student engagement. The host, Dr Wiley teaches music education at the University of Surrey in the UK and he showed us how the use of clicker technology in his classes increased student interest as well as performance.

Evidence:

Webinar #2: Scenarios & Simulations: Bring Meaning to e-Learning

Key Learnings: This professional development webinar was hosted by Training Magazine and feature the speaker Ethan Edwards. I learned quite a bit from this webinar about the effectiveness of scenarios, simulations and games in e-learning. Edwards explained how simply delivering content over the web does not maximize understanding for the learner. He explained how scenarios and simulations engage, provide context, challenge and provide feedback to the learner.

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Webinar #3: Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Training Evaluation: Do you REALLY Know the Four Levels?.

Key Learnings: This was my favorite and most relevant webinar. The Kirkpatrick Model for evaluation is the standard for educators and trainers. I learned an exceptional amount about setting goals for learners, providing them actionable feedback, and giving them the opportunity to provide ME with feedback on my training sessions and methods. The best part about this webinar was the ability to communicate with other training professionals about how the webinar concepts apply to real life. The webinar was also interactive and engaging with polling offered to participants prior to each section. That is something that I can add to my own webinars to make them more effective.

Evidence:

Twitter Chat #1: #digcit

Key Learnings: This Twitter chat was not a fruitful one. It was supposed to be live from 7-8pm on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month. I “joined” the chat last night and found minimal tweeting and sharing. In fact, my two contributions (evidenced below) made up most of the chat. This was disappointing and a waste of my time. It was supposed to be a discussion on digital citizenship for educators. It appeared to be a place to advertise websites and other live Twitter chats.

Evidence:

Twitter Chat #2: #SatChat

Key Learnings: This was a great chat to join. The topic was college readiness. It was a great learning experience to hear ideas from educators from across the country, grade levels and content areas. Although I am not a teacher, I work in higher education with college faculty from colleges and universities all over the world. It was helpful for me to gain understanding from k-12 teachers on how they are preparing their students for the next level. This insight increased my knowledge of where students are, in terms of readiness, when they get to college. I think this will help me prepare faculty members to use our audience response technology with these students who are new to college.

Evidence:

Twitter Chat #3: #SunChat

Key Learnings: This Twitter chat was much like #SatChat. It was a stream of educators Tweeting answers to a main theme question. The theme for this particular Sunday chat was “actionable feedback”. The really cool thing about that theme was that it tied in with the Kirkpatrick webinar on evaluation levels 3 and 4. I participated by sharing a great article on the topic and also by responding to the question. I learned so many new ideas about how to provide and collect actionable feedback.

Evidence:

Twitter Chat #4 - #BFC530

Key Learnings: The question for this daily, 15-minute chat among teachers was how to keep students engaged in a world of distractions. This was a very brief “good morning session” to get educators ready for a new day in the classroom with some encouraging words and great ideas. I did not really learn much from this because there really was not time for much back and forth between participants. It was, however, a good way to kick off a new week.

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