Friday, February 5, 2010

A PD I liked

Another course assignment -- thinking about a great professional development that I attended, and what made it great. The assignment actually is about the last great one, but I have a hard time thinking of a great one, at least recently. I attended a good day-long program on websites for K-8 students last year. "Good" because it was fast-paced, because I learned about a lot of new websites, because it reminded me of how much stuff is out there. The presenter was up on web resources, and I felt that I learned a lot from the session. The session included a good takeaway reference with a companion web site to keep the reference material current.

What made it good for me might have made it not so good for other attendees. I appreciated the speed and density of the material, but someone with less comfort with the Internet might have felt that it was too much. Since attendance was voluntary (it required payment), the PD organizer could forewarn attendees of the workshop level. The attendees could self-select if the PD was for them. This is a much simpler PD scenario than one where attendees with a wide range of skills and expectations are required to attend.

Jd

2 comments:

Ed Caster said...

If it was a good pd session, what might have been done to make it great? From what you said, it sounds like it was really good and maybe even great. It sounded thorough, presented by someone knowledgeable and you came away with a lot of information that could be used the next day. I haven't been to too many sessions that sounded as god as the one you described.

Russ' said...

it is too bad the pd participants were not all at the same level. i find sometimes, that when users self-select their level, they are not always honest about what their level is.