Online Professional Development a Primer: Educators Have Access to a Dizzying Array of Virtual Learning Opportunities, but They Must Be Mindful That Working with Colleagues Produces Some of the Best Learning

Online professional development for teachers continues to grow in popularity, as schools and educators look for cheaper, more efficient ways to meet current needs and demands. The number of web sites and other virtual learning opportunities makes it difficult for teachers to make sense of the available opportunities, their content, their quality, and how they fit with their personal learning goals. As providers of online professional development, we know well the dizzying array of opportunities available to educators. Online professional development can sometimes be a good choice with many benefits to teachers, but, at other times, traditional in person professional development may be a better fit. How can educators make sense of this ever growing landscape of online professional learning? Types of online PD Despite intense interest in online professional learning, we still have a shortage of shared language around the types of online learning experiences available to teachers. We broadly define online professional development as synchronous, asynchronous, and hybrid. Synchronous online learning activities happen in real time. Examples include distance education courses offered by universities, webinars on specific topics of interest to teachers, and virtual coaching and teacher collaboration opportunities. In general, these opportunities don't use technology to transform the learning experience; instead, the learning experience resembles in person professional development in a virtual setting. The facilitator typically oversees a teacher or group of teachers who are participating in the learning experience at the same time or works with groups of teachers working together over time on a project of shared interest. The amount of interactivity can vary widely from a webinar where participants do little more than listen or type a question in a chat box to a fully collaborative web conference where participants interact as much as they would in a classroom or a school hallway. Asynchronous online learning activities happen at different times for different participants. Examples include teacher social networks, discussion boards and other communities, self paced online courses (including most MOOCs massive open online courses) and resource sharing web sites (including web sites where teachers share lessons/ideas with each other and web sites where external experts share professional learning tools, videos, instructional resources, and so forth with teachers) These activities are often self directed by the teacher, which means the teacher determines what, how, and when they learn. For instance, a teacher using an asynchronous site may use it for such diverse purposes as downloading a new math lesson, asking questions on a discussion board about assessment, or viewing a video of a science activity in action. In contrast to synchronous activities, these activities are often transformed and defined by the technology. For instance, a self paced course may feature mostly interactive multimedia presentations, or a resource repository may use sophisticated search engines to give teachers the tools they need. Hybrid online learning activities take place as part of a larger in person learning opportunity. Examples include in person courses or workshops that require virtual collaboration or completion of other online tasks between sessions. These hybrid opportunities may use synchronous or asynchronous online tools, depending on the particular aims of the in person sessions. When choosing between these types of online activities, educators must consider their learning goals and styles. Are they looking for certification or course credit? Or are they simply looking for resources, ideas, or collaborative opportunities on certain topics? Do they learn best from structured experiences with formal learning goals? Or do they learn more from self directed experiences that extend over time and topic?