SCoPE Seminar: Developing a Professional Development Collaboratory August 18, 2008

Facilitator: Nancy Randall

Professional development opportunities for educational professionals abound but it can be a challenge for individuals to organize and manage the information. Many institutions have an open invitation to participate in pro-d activities but it's difficult to find out about them. There are many cases of informal exchanges of expertise across campuses but no mechanism for offering such services. In British Columbia we are working on an Professional Development Collaboratory project to address these challenges. The service will be extended beyond the boundaries of our province, with the goal of developing into the ideal venue for finding out about and sharing information about pro-d opportunities.

Through this SCoPE discussion we hope to build an inventory of exemplary sites, find out how other people have tackled the design of pro-d sites, and learn about various technologies to support what we want to accomplish.

Questions that we plan to investigate include:
a) What are examples on exemplary on-line professional development websites?
b) Why are these sites effective? What criteria describe these effective sites?
c) What factors encourage you to investigate an online professional development site?
d) What factors bring you back many times to these sites?
e) What factors encourage you to contribute?

Official Website: http://scope.lidc.sfu.ca