Snowy Day Professional Development

If you live or were visiting the East Coast of the United States on January 23, 2016, you were caught in a historic snow storm that crippled transportation, closed schools and provided enough snow for kids to play with for days and days.

I had planned a special Connected Educator event at one of the schools where I work entitled, "True Confessions of a Connected Educator". I asked Mark James, a Broughal Math teacher, to share his experiences of being a connected teacher as has been featured on the Connected Educator website in the past (www.connectededucators.org) . We were scheduled to have the event in person at Liberty High School and online three days after the storm. Since our district's schools were closed on the day Mark was to speak, it was evident that we'd have to cancel the in person event.

However, meeting online from the comfort of our own homes was still possible so we decided to hold the event online.  We used Google Hangouts -- it was a blast! Five Bethlehem Area School District staff gathered online to learn on a snow day!  Two classroom teachers, one counselor, one administrator and one Tech Integration Specialist were in attendance.

In many ways this was not remarkable at all. Thousands of teachers have access to PD anytime and anywhere each day as they use social media tools to connect to one another. However, it was noteworthy in that our school district has not had many professional development events occur on a snow day!

We have rescheduled Mark to come to Liberty High School in person on February 24, 2016 from 3:45-4:45PM.   I'm crossing my fingers that we do not have any more snow, but know that we can always meet again online if the circumstance allows!