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Professional Deveklopment Focus

Anne Wujcik —Friday, August 22, 2008

It’s always interesting to see a set of announcements around a common theme. This week it was professional development, with announcements from Pearson, Scientific Learning, USDLC, and New Dimension Media and earlier announcements from Inspiration Software and Atomic Learning. Pearson has folded all its teacher-centered businesses into a new business unit, the Teacher Education and Development Group. The group will support the professional development of educators from preparation through practice.

One of the Pearson group’s offerings is Learning Teams, a collaborative model that brings teachers together to learn from each other. Ohio has become the first state to invest in the Leadership Team model to deliver comprehensive educator training in literacy. The state signed a $6 million, four-year deal to establish Literacy Leadership Teams (LLT) within Ohio’s schools. The LLT model starts with the implementation of well-defined student instruction, and includes teacher team meetings for review and assessment of student performance.

Scientific Learning Corp launched Virtual Academy, a series of web-based instructional courses that demonstrate how to effectively use Fast ForWord and Reading Assistant. The self-paced, online training provides a cost-effective solution for smaller schools and districts and a quick way to train new teachers to use the applications.

The United Star Distance Learning Consortium announced a PD series that will take place in the Second Life virtual environment. “The Future Is Already Here - Teachers Who Are Bringing the Future to Their Classrooms” will feature interactive sessions with teachers who are leading the way in some area of the future that is already here, including Web 2.0, 1:1 computing, robotics, or serious gaming / 3D Web. The series will be produced in the 3D online, virtual world of Second Life on USDLC Star Island as well as offered via Internet Radio with chat for interactivity for non-Second Life Residents.

Inspiration Software is offering free webcasts that will demonstrate how to use visual learning to help young learners build math and reading skills. The two 45-minute webcasts will allow teachers learn more about using Kidspiration to help their students build literacy and math skills, from the comfort of their classroom or living room.

And Atomic Learning continues to offer educators the chance to sample their online software training. Most recently the company announced a free series on Microsoft Office 2008. The tutorial series, which includes more than thirty short, show-and-tell movies that guide users through the new features in Word, Excel and PowerPoint 2.0, is available free of charge at the Atomic Learning website through September 10^th.

New Dimension Media inked a deal to provide its CCC! Video on Demand product to the Oak Park-River Forest School District 200 in Oak Park, IL and Elementary School District 102 in La Grange Park, IL for 2008-2009 school year. With the purchase the schools get access to 2,500 K-12 educational video programs correlated to all states' standards as well as a number of cutting edge technology tools. In addition to Classroom LIVE, which enables distance learning by keeping homebound teachers and students connected via a virtual classroom, CCC! is the only video on demand system to integrate with iTunes, allowing students and teachers to watch CCC! content anywhere on their iPods. CCC! is also able to host and broadcast live webcasts of classroom sessions, school sporting events, cultural performances, and professional development that can be watched as they happen or stored for playback.

Another item that caught my eye was Somatic Digital’s content distribution partnership with Curriki that will make Curriki-hosted educational materials available with Somatic Digital's eTouchBook Suite(TM). The eTouchBook Suite of hardware and software platform tools enable publishers, content owners, authors, and educators to manage and directly link their print and digital assets. The eTouchBook turns the regular or Braille printed page into a touch screen.

Finally, Funds for Learning reports that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that outlines substantial changes to the E-rate program. The FCC is seeking public comment on whether costs for items such as Internet content filtering software, anti-virus software, anti-spam software, advanced firewalls, scheduling services, and telephone broadcast messaging should be discounted with the support of E-rate funding. In addition, the FCC is asking E-rate stakeholders to offer their opinions of changes in several program definitions, such as interconnected VoIP, and basic phone service. Public comments regarding these changes to the E-rate program must be submitted to the FCC by Sept. 18. Anyone wishing to reply to submitted comments can do so before Oct. 3. For a complete summary of the NPRM, visit http://www.fundsforlearning.com/content/view/1148/89/.