During spring break I discovered the awesome archive or webinars by EdWeb. I have since viewed/participated in over 17 of them.
It all started with a single webinar on how blended professional development could be delivered. Harmless in itself but then I discovered a whole learning community devoted to the brain. I am a wannabe neuroscientist and devoured webinars about the impact of technology on the brain, physical activity and the brain and sleep and the brain. I was hooked!
Some of the webinars that stand out to me are from the new teacher community. They include presentations on finding some of the best online resources and the ten best educational apps. Many I was aware of but I was excited to make new discoveries.
My most recent webinar was on Open Educational resources. In particular it introduced me to a website hosted by a non-profit organization called Curriki. It has over 85, 000 resources available to members (which there are currently almost 500,000) The Curriki team evaluates the resources based on Achieve (American federal standards.) Members can also rate the resources with a five star system and request the Curriki team review a particular resource if it has not yet been reviewed. This helps ensure quality. One glitch I ran into when signing up on Curriki was that although it includes Canada in a dropdown menu when registering, it does not recognize Canadian postal codes. I bypassed this hurdle by entering the American zip code I am most familiar with…..90210. As a result, my profile states that I am from California. Hmph. Could be worse.
The webinars are sponsored so there is a minor marketing component but I have not found this to be off-putting or affect the quality of the content in the majority of cases.
I am eagerly awaiting my next fix. There are webinars scheduled on UDL and Instagram. So help me, I am an addict.