Flipping PD with Blendspace

All year I have been waiting for the right opportunity to flip professional development for the teachers.  I wanted to create an experience that would benefit the various levels of knowledge within the teaching staff.  It needed to be an experience that would be inspiring and positive so they would be willing to take risks and flip learning experiences they create for students.  We as adult learners have done so much around blended learning and Google Apps for Education via the typical PD presentations.   It was time for me to take all my learning and transform the way I plan and implement PD.  The focus would be Google Classroom (GC).

Enter the world called Blendspace. This platform for flipped opportunities allows you personalize learning with videos, images, various presentation platforms from Powerpoint to Prezi, google applications, documents, etc...  Learners can begin anywhere in the pathway depending on the foundational knowledge.

The pathway I created provided a brief introductory prezi which targets the benefits of Google Classroom.  This introduction was important because not all students will have 1:1 devices next year but GC can be relevant as long as there is some access to technology.   Then teachers could moved to part two and watch a brief overview of GC.  After part two, the pathway depended on how a teacher learns.  For learners who need direct instruction they could watch part three but if a teacher wanted a holistic overview and then play around with the tool, they could move right to part four.   Part five was noted that all had to complete because it brought them through a "joining a class" experience.  For this segment, I used a Google Slide that provided teachers step by step instructions with visuals for joining a class, the CMS Faculty page.

We will use this GC for future PD opportunities, agenda postings, calendars, announcements, etc...  It will be the virtual CMS faculty meeting site!  Very exciting! The last few parts of the pathway were for those who wanted to go further in their own learning.


Check it out and hopefully you learned something about Blendspace and Classroom!