Rebel U {Virtual Edition}: Recap

------

This a post in a series about Rebel U {Virtual Edition} 2013.

------

This year our Technology Team was granted an additional professional development that was mandatory for the Godfrey-Lee professional teaching staff.  This day was planned and developed differently than our traditional fall Rebel U day.  One thing our Technology Team receives many requests for help on is utilizing web resources, making content easily accessible to students, and building websites.  In October 2012, Kelly McGee and Sarah Wood had surveyed teachers in the district about teacher website usage and understanding (results posted here).We decided that the focus for this professional development day would be to take all of those requests and survey findings and bundle them into a learning opportunity allowing each teacher build their own classroom website.  This day was consequently named, Rebel U {Virtual Edition}.


In order for teachers to view this day as a different learning experience (yet building on what they learned during Rebel U in the fall), we held our professional development day at the Kent ISD.  The day was structured that in the morning, teachers would attend three different sessions that were aligned to the 21Things4Teachers program to learn about different tools, resources, and techniques for building their website.  The afternoon consisted of a Collaboration block where teachers had the time to take what they have learned in the morning and implement it as they build their websites.  Teachers also had time built into the day to reconvene with their grade level/content area team to discuss what they learned during the day and show off their websites.

As part of the morning welcome, the Technology Team created a video to inform the teachers of the happenings throughout the day.


As part of our evaluation, we asked teachers to summarize their day in one word.  We have asked this same question on previous Rebel U evaluations and sometimes it offers such great insight as to the teachers' overall reaction of the day.  Below is a word cloud that summarizes the responses given to the question, "In ONE word, how would you summarize your Rebel U {Virtual Edition} experience?".

The feedback we received from teachers was overwhelming in their thankfulness for having time devoted to being able to build a website and have staff on-hand to help them in the process.  We were grateful to be able to provide a professional development opportunity that met their needs and our team is looking forward to Rebel U in the fall!