Self Paced Professional Development

As an Apple foundation trainer I receive updated training manuals for two years after my Apple Academy graduation. (Class of June 2011 & February 2013) As I was reading my manual in an iTunes U course on my iPad and creating screencast for how-to videos on my Mac in QuickTime, a lightbulb went off in my head...

Last year when I was coaching I worked with a few teachers on creating self-paced lessons or units using the Pages or Numbers applications on Mac. I thought to myself why can't I do this for professional development? Participants were at all different levels, and I knew some teachers would need some initial help troubleshooting.

I always posted resources and how-to videos in my iTunes U course and/or on my personal or school district YouTube account. Usually at the end of my trainings I would tell the participants to go back and find the videos. Today was "Getting to know Mavericks" professional development for School District 100 teachers; I only had three hours to teach it. So, I spent all day yesterday creating how-to videos, shared them in my iTeach Above the Line iTunes U Course and created a Maverick Playlist in YouTube. I also created a professional development community in Google + to post resources for anyone that attends a PD in South Berwyn this summer.

I started the training by reviewing the SAMR model; I walked 3L Pershing's About Berwyn project up the ladder. Then I gave one hour for self paced learning. Teachers watched the how-to videos by following along on my OS X Mavericks Keynote presentation. As teachers watched the videos for an hour, I acted as a facilitator. I was able to walk around the room and help teachers with questions they had, while others could keep working.

+Mo Gorman & +Jen Lehotsky brought their iPads with them, so they viewed the videos from iTunes U. 

Key take aways:

• Self-paced PD allows for trainer to act as a facilitator 
• Self-paced PD allows for participants to work at their own pace
• Post resources in multiple formats for iOS and laptop users 
• Create how-to videos for participants to refer back to