Amazing idea, David!  Here in Massachusetts, the idea of online professional 
development is really being promoted, and having videos of good teaching 
would be of tremendous benefit.  After all, how many of us actually visit 
our colleagues' classrooms?

Wendy Quinones
wbquinones at adelphia.net

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Rosen" <djrosen at comcast.net>
To: "The Technology and Literacy Discussion List" <technology at nifl.gov>; 
"The Adult Literacy Professional Development Discussion List" 
<professionaldevelopment at nifl.gov>
Sent: Friday, December 22, 2006 3:12 PM
Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 720] A teacher-made 
professionaldevelopment video library



> Colleagues,

>

> Suppose we had a free video library of  500 digital videos ( from 3

> minutes to 15 minutes each) of adult education classrooms.  Suppose

> these were made and edited by adult education teachers and their

> colleagues (and students) using local digital video and editing

> equipment.  Suppose some of these videos -- those that were

> successful illustrations of EFF content standards or state content

> standards or curriculum frameworks, for example -- were each awarded

> prizes of $500 by state professional development centers.  Suppose

> these videos were online free, for example on Google, but also

> indexed in a searchable database so that teachers, administrators and

> professional developers could find good video examples -- in practice

> -- of a concept, standard, or teaching method they wanted to see.

> Concepts such as "integrating technology in the classroom,"

> "formative assessment," "standards-based numeracy,"  "project-based

> learning,"  "effective teaching in the ESOL multilevel classroom" and

> many others ,might be illustrated through actual video examples from

> practice.

>

> How do we get started with this?

>

> 1. Teachers need to follow Barry Burkett's example and make videos of

> their teaching and upload them to Google for others to see.  At

> first, the quality may not be ideal, but quality can be achieved in

> time with better editing software, better mic-ing of sound, more

> cameras, more time to edit. Teachers can get good at making videos.

> They can then teach their students these skills, too. (Or maybe some

> students already have the video skills and can share them with the

> teacher!)

>

> 2. State literacy resource centers need to provide teachers with

> incentives to do this "project based" professional development.  The

> incentive could be in the form of $500 mini-grants to rent or

> purchase equipment or software, or to pay for a teacher's time to

> make and edit the videos.  The incentive could also be in the form of

> ($500) prizes for videos that were selected as exemplary, to be used

> in state professional development or curriculum standards work.

>

> 3. We need a database. Once we have it, we need reviewers who will

> look at and tag the videos so they can be found in the database using

> commonly used adult education terms.

>

> I would be interested in your thoughts about this idea. I would be

> even more interested to know if you, or teachers you know, are

> excited enough about this to get started, to make a video of

> classroom teaching and learning.  If so, visit http://

> wiki.literacytent.org/index.php/Google_videos for more information on

> how to get started and e-mail me about your interest in this idea.

>

> David J. Rosen

> djrosen at comcast.net

>

>

>

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