On Wednesday, I participated in my first online professional development. The PD was through NSTA and I signed up for the class, beleiving that I could use the material in my Earth Science class.
The material in the PD was over humans colonizing space and learning the process of using resources and disposing of waste. I was pleasantly surprised by the format of the webinar, I thought it might be more complicated that it was to get the programs up and running. The program was through Elluminate Live! and it was really easy program to operate.
One thing I will be careful of the next time I sign up for a PD online is that I can actually use the material in my classroom. This was great information and it will be something I can discuss with my Earth Science class to give some "beef" to my astronomy unit. It seems that we usually spend time talking about space travel and/or settling space every year. However, they depth to which the material covered is not something that I will use in my classroom.
As teachers, we have to pick ideas and projects that we can use to help students understand concepts and standards. I wish we had more time to teach cool material like this, but for me this material isn't justified enough in my standards to spend this much time covering, particularly because I already have an activity I know and love that covers this material.
Overall, good experience, glad I tried it. After all, that's what summertime is for if you are a teacher!
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