How To Make Hands-On Professional Development Virtual
The first full week of June is always my favorite week. In Georgia, Memorial Day is the marker for the end of the school year. Typically, the school year ends the Friday before Memorial Day and there is usually a day or two of post-planning the week of Memorial Day. That leaves the Thursday and Friday of the first week and the weekend for me to get excited for what is coming the following week.
Camp T&I (Trade and Industry) is a three and half day family reunion shrouded in professional development. It’s been 10 years since I first attended Camp T&I. It was the back corner of a community college in Savannah, Georgia. There were a dozen or so teachers from around the state struggling to get internet access but sharing all they had with each other. I was immediately in love with this idea of a true, teacher-lead professional development.
Since then, the training has changed a good bit. It’s gone from the back of a community college to a College and Career Academy in Brunswick, Georgia. Instead of a dozen teachers, it’s now around 50 to 60. Instead of one room, it’s expanded to 3 rooms offering concurrent sessions presented by educators and industry professionals from around the country. Best practices on teaching employability skills, demonstrations of the latest software and hardware, and an entire day in the field to produce a news show or a short film are just some of the topics covered. Teachers bring equipment and share tips and tricks. Comparing lesson plans and refining social media and web presence are always a point of conversation.
The event is literally marked on my calendar with the same fervor that I mark Christmas and my kid’s birthdays. I love the event. It is a family reunion of video production teachers. If you go to any of the restaurants around the area that week, you are going to find establishments filled with teachers and their families sharing meals together. Back of the room and hallway conversations solidify the relationships between teachers from all over the state and in all ranges of their professional careers.
Then 2020 happened…
In April, the state Department of Education announced that all training will be virtual through the rest of the calendar year. As we tried to figure out what to do, Lynne Wilson, the Executive Director of CTAERN (Career Technical Agriculture Education Resource Network) asked “how do we take the most hands-on professional development ever and make it virtual?”
As the facilitator, my job was to find a way to create content that was not only engaging but also allowed for the same elements of Camp T&I but with teachers literally all over the state. The first thing we had to clear was the expectations in terms of time. The “normal” Camp T&I is over 20 hours of professional development credit hours. I was certain that if we tried to keep that requirement, it would be a nightmare for all involved. Luckily, the directive came down to do 8 hours of training per person.
Eight hours was an easily attainable goal considering teachers would have at least a full week to complete the time. Now came the task of coming up with a plan that appeals to as many people as possible and most importantly is valuable for everyone. As you know, video production can go 100 different directions - news, film, social media, etc.
I also knew that, unlike other pathways, there are expectations for most video teachers when it comes to the end of the school year - graduations, celebrations, etc - that would make it impossible for some to just sit and watch at a certain time each day. This meant I had to come up with an on-demand delivery method while at the same time trying to create that family atmosphere that is a key to the DNA of Camp T&I.
The plan was simple: host live events via Google Meets or Zoom (Presenter’s preference), record them, and distribute. Then I remembered what a lot of people don’t know: Teachers are often worse than students when it comes to getting stuff done. I had to come up with a way to distribute the content to each “attendee” that would allow me to measure what they actually watch so I can hold all accountable. I reached out to my instructional technology people and got a lot of potential solutions. I settled on PlayPosit.
PlayPosit has a ton of options on how you can handle monitoring video viewing. PlayPosit actually allows you to make your content interactive - Ask questions, etc. I used it simply to monitor the number and time spent watching videos during the week. I would upload the videos to YouTube (If you read all of the article there is a treat for you at the end… Don’t skip ahead) and create what PlayPosit calls “bulbs.” Essentially, a bulb is the video paired with the interactive content you add. I didn’t do much with this during this professional development but I will in the future as well as in my classroom next school year.
Camp T&I was scheduled for June 2 through the 5th but in order to get all of the content, we had to start early. The first video was May 14th. We hosted a couple that week in order to see how it would work. The following week was essentially off the table due to the end of the school year and graduations - virtual, drive in or not. So the week of May 26th, we hit the ground running with live sessions. There were 14 sessions that week. That allowed there to be a lot of content on day one of the scheduled Camp T&I. The sessions ranged from detailed breakdowns on Tricasters, best practices in news/film production, how to teach students to be great on camera, details about the BlackMagic Design ATEM Mini, NewBlueFX Titler Live, and much more.
On Sunday, June 1, I sent all who registered (99 total teachers) a link to the PlayPosit site and a schedule of the events that were to happen that week and Camp T&I had officially begun. There
25 total sessions throughout the window including the live and on-demand viewing. During Camp T&I there was over 1,000 hours of content consumed via live session or on-demand viewing.
In short of the 99 teachers who signed up for Camp T&I, 88 completed the required 8 hours of viewing. There were several who completed over 20 hours. Those who didn’t complete had a variety of reasons - transferring to a new school, family reasons, etc. But as I stated earlier, I had to stay on a couple of people just as I do when it comes to my students. I found myself saying “Come on “insert name” please have done something” as I opened the PlayPosit gradebook. And just as we have all experienced with our students, I had one teacher contact me over a week after event was over saying that their “no show status” was in error. Thanks to PlayPosit and solid record keeping of the live sessions, I was able to show that they had committed to a total of 3 minutes of training during the 6 days it was available....
It is totally possible to take a hands on training and make it effective and beneficial, you just have to have great presenters who are on the front lines and willing to share their knowledge with peers and not feel the need to compete or be too scared of vulnerability.
As a thank you for reading this entire article, I want to share all of the content from Camp T&I with you. This link will take you to the AVTF (Audio/Video Technology and Film - It’s our government name) page for Camp T&I. You will find the playlist of videos as well as the google drive folder with the content from some of the presenters.
Meet the Author, Tom White
Tom White is the digital media instructor at Morgan County High School in Madison, GA. Currently teaching TV production and animation pathways, Tom's programs have received state and national honors including the 2016 NFHS Network School Broadcast Program Of The Year. Prior to teaching, Tom was a marketing, promotions, and online content director for a major radio corporation in Atlanta. Tom studied exercise science at High Point University prior to his radio career. Despite his winding career path, his mother still thinks he is special.