Teen Literacy Tips

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Professional development is always a challenge for busy teachers. Fortunately, the online world is making it much easier for us to grow in our educational techniques, knowledge and competence. Three sites in particular can help with the continual work of keeping our teaching skills current.

TeacherClockHours.com

One site that helps teachers, especially in the state of Washington, is the free site TeacherClockHours.com, which lists every teacher workshop in the state in one place. I developed TeacherClockHours.com myself for two reasons:

1. It’s more efficient for a few people to do all the work of finding workshops and gathering them in one place, than for every teacher to go hunting for inservices and conferences. I wanted to make teachers’ lives easier.
2. There are many teachers and presenters who give great workshops but need a place to get the word out. TeacherClockHours.com is that place. I wanted to help presenters find an audience.

If you live outside Washington State , there are resources for you as well. If you’re interested in becoming a workshop presenter yourself, check out Resources for Workshop Presenters. I’ve also set up a page describing a way for you to add to your teaching salary through shopping online. If you’re a regular blog reader, you probably shop online. The Teachers Shopping Network by My Power Mall harnesses the power of online shopping in order to help you make money.

Videos for Professional Development

Another professional development resource comes from Wesley Freyer at Moving at the Speed of Creativity. Wesley has added a terrific new section to his site called “Videos for Professional Development.” You won’t earn any credits or clock hours by watching these videos, but you’ll definitely learn by watching the videos he’s collected.

Learner.org

If you want to earn credits, clock hours, PUDs, or whatever they’re called in your state, be sure to visit Annenberg’s teacher resources at Learner.org. These are exceptionally high quality free video-on-demand workshops in many different curricular areas and age levels.

I am absolutely amazed at the overal quality of these workshops, from the printable materials to the expertise of the presenters to the production quality of the videos. Find a friend and register together for one of the workshops. You’ll get some terrific ideas for improving your teaching skills.

Conclusion

It’s not as difficult as it once was to find professional development opportunities, but it still takes time to actually take the classes and do the work. Make it a point to know when your credentials expire, and then make a plan to earn the credits or clock hours you need before it’s too late.

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