3 Ways Webconferencing Is Transforming PD

From sharing classroom videos to building communities of practice, teachers are collaborating online in ways that would have been impossible a few years ago. This is the last in a six-part monthly series examining how different technologies can help schools enhance collaboration. Previous installments have covered social media, furniture, interactive devices, apps to make iPads collaborative, and collaboration in a BYOD environment. In the first five articles of our series on technologies that enable collaboration, we highlighted ways to foster shared learning experiences among students. our final installment, we shift the focus to teachers. States, districts, and groups of teachers are enhancing their collaboration opportunities through synchronous online meetings and asynchronous discussions, enabling teachers to reflect on their own work and form new relationships around common topics of interest. Here are three ways they're making online collaboration work. Video Learning Communities In 2012, Ryan Kinser, an eighth-grade English teacher at Walker Middle Magnet School in Tampa, FL, had an inspiration. He knew that his school had cameras collecting dust in closets. He also knew that the district, Hillsborough Court Public Schools, had software licenses for a product called Teachscape Reflect, which allows districts to capture video, share it online, and offer other teachers a forum in which to discuss what they've seen. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I was thinking about ways to advance teaching and wanted to use our district as a training ground, explains Kinser, who works with the Center for Teaching Quality on innovations in education research and policy. He is also a member of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Teacher Advisory Council (the Gates Foundation was an early funder of the product that became Teachscape Reflect). started in May 2012 with Kinser making videos with his students at Walker Magnet has grown into what he calls a video learning community throughout his entire district. He stresses that the effort is teacher-led and not used for evaluative purposes. Teachers upload clips of themselves teaching, and other teachers can discuss the clips, either in real time or on a discussion board. It is really valuable in support of new teachers, Kinser says. Mentors and teachers can break down the classroom together the way a basketball coach and a teem pull apart a game. For instance, they can focus on where classroom management want awry, he says. A dozen Hillsborough County schools are now using Reflect, and eight more have signed up for next year. That will cover about 10 percent of the teachers in the district. We also have requests for information from districts across the country who want to do this, Kinser says. To get started, districts don't need expensive cameras or software. Flip cams work fine, Kinser says, and Google Hangouts are free for up to 10 people. You can look at a together, have a chat thread, and bring documents from Google Drive. There are other tools: Vialogues, VoiceThread, and SchoolTube. Teachers have lots of software options. During the 2013-2014 school year, Hillsborough County will offer educators formal training about how to collaborate effectively in a virtual community. People need some help in how to give specific feedback other than saying 'Good job,' Kinser says. We also want to look at more data points and do more measurement, he adds--for instance, putting a focus on higher-order questioning. Cloud Conferencing When administrators at Dublin City Schools in Franklin County, OH, began planning a new technology center last year, they knew they wanted to include some sort of videoconferencing solution to allow teachers and students in separate schools to collaborate. According to Mike Voss, chief technology officer, What we didn't want was to have videoconferencing equipment installed in fixed locations in every building. …