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Thinkfinity Professional Development has a wealth of webinars on various education topics.

Thinkfinity Professional Development has a wealth of webinars on various education topics.

With "Back to School" signs cropping up all over stores, educators are certainly aware of the imminent countdown to the first day of school and the first few days of inservice. But why wait till August or even September to indulge in exquisite professional learning… when these Wicked Good Ideas for Professional Development are ripe …

With "Back to School" signs cropping up all over stores, educators are certainly aware of the imminent countdown to the first day of school and the first few days of inservice. But why wait till August or even September to indulge in exquisite professional learning… when these Wicked Good Ideas for Professional Development are ripe …

There are numerous resources for teachers out there on the web, making finding, sharing, and accessing great tools for development easier than ever.

A course on how to build an audience in social media. Excellent professional development resource for teachers and librarians wanting to build an audience within their social media. The entire "course" would be a large time investment, but many of the resources for the course could be used for staff development.

This could be used for professional developments and for Google Drive support.

This could be used for professional developments and for Google Drive support.

MERLOT is a free and open peer reviewed collection of online teaching and learning materials and faculty-developed services contributed and used by an international education community. Our middle school is going 1:1 this year and the teachers are encouraged to try blended learning. This site would be helpful for them to help set up their courses.

MERLOT is a free and open peer reviewed collection of online teaching and learning materials and faculty-developed services contributed and used by an international education community. Our middle school is going 1:1 this year and the teachers are encouraged to try blended learning. This site would be helpful for them to help set up their courses.

This site has a lot of opportunities for staff development.

This site has a lot of opportunities for staff development.

A great resource to share with teachers as the library media specialist supporting professional development.

A great resource to share with teachers as the library media specialist supporting professional development.

This is course could be used for a professional development on copyright.

This is course could be used for a professional development on copyright.

CrashCourse videos are openly available on YouTube. This links to the Intellectual Property playlist with 7 videos. I plan to use these with the High School English Department and also in sections with professional development to set the stage with appropriate copyright usage for the upcoming school year.

I was looking through the resources and also stumbled upon this one, since I enjoy music, I decided to include it. Well, that and the fact that one of the last inquiry units I worked on with some elementary students last year focused on the Depression and one group looked at its culture in California with migrant workers, etc. This would have been a great resource for them! The resource comes from the LOC and allows students to explore the culture and ethnicities of folk music during the 30s. There are audio clips to explore, sketches for instrument design and a lot of other cool things here.  I could see students easily using this resource for a history unit or a music class to better understand what life was like during the 30s. In a history class, students might investigate the outlook on life through the lyrics in some of the songs. In a music class, students might trace the development of the music and its instruments. With other resources, students could look at the way the music here has had an influence on what we listen to today. Just some thoughts.

This is a TED Talk that could be used with educators at a professional development session or as media in an online professional development course. How can we create an education system that works for kids, instead of against them? Watch eight inspiring talks (and one beautiful performance) from TED's May 2013 PBS special, given in their entirety.

This course could be used in our high school business classes, as their curriculum covers the business plan process. It would be a great way to support a simulation where students create their own businesses from the ground up.

Our music teacher is attempting to correlate her curriculum with what is taking place in the classroom. This lesson may be a great way to do this. I also see the library piggy-backing with this...perhaps through the use of PebbleGo!

OER nutrition unit developed by Baylor College of Medicine. Great lesson plans with objectives, standards, and activities all laid out. Upper elementary teachers teaching nutrition unit or a middle school health class would find this source very useful.

This course could be used to help teachers who are interested in learning more about e-learning opportunities as flipped learning, moocs, etc. are gaining popularity in schools. I know a lot of teachers in my school district who would be interested in this kind of learning.

Although this TAG is a broad choice, I think the it would suit any classroom setting. I think a major draw to this source would be its alignment to the common core. I would introduce this source to teachers in a professional development setting, as well as refer to it in my own collaborative teaching efforts. (Now I just need to remember all my passwords and usernames for these sites.) :)

To help states, districts, teachers, and other users determine the degree of alignment of OER to the Common Core State Standards, and to determine aspects of quality of OER, Achieve has developed eight rubrics in collaboration with leaders from the OER community. To allow users to apply these rubrics and evaluate the quality of instructional resources, Achieve partnered with OER Commons to develop an online evaluation tool.

This article gives ideas on how to use interactive boards in the classroom. Every class this year received a new updated smart panel. It is my job through professional development to encourage use and train the staff on the use of the new panels. This article will give them many ideas to integrate the use into their teaching.

"Three Point Discussion Rubric Many times, simple is best. Some faculty at UIS have adopted a three-point grading rubric for students that is easy for students to master and easy for instructors to grade. Up to 1 point for original thought / contribution (perspective not previously posted) Up to 1 point for development of thought ( full explanation, detail, insight; this usually requires a couple of paragraphs or more to accomplish ) Up to 1 point for responding to posting of others "