Whether summer brings you time to relax, an opportunity to bolster your credentials, or some extra work to help balance your checkbook, you’ll likely want to keep at least one toe in the education pool. We have suggestions to spur your cogitation and avoid any professional “summer slide.”

Books and Videos to Savor

> Anticipating some deep relaxation? Ready for neural stimulation? The folks at Powerful Learning Practice have compiled a list of favorite books from education authors like Linda Darling-Hammond, Ken Robinson, John Hattie and 17 others.

> You may want to take on this year’s version of the Book Whisperer’s summer reading Book-a-Day Challenge. “Any book qualifies,” says the Book Whisperer (AKA fourth grade teacher Donalyn Miller), “including picture books, nonfiction, professional books, poetry anthologies, or fiction–children’s, youth, or adult titles.”  Miller, who blogged about a recent reading slump, welcomes educators to this summer’s challenge at the Nerdy Book Club.  Get the latest at #nerdybookclub.

> To travel beyond the world of pedagogy, whether on vacation or on your deck, you can find lots of super fiction and nonfiction reviews at NPR’s Book page (@nprbooks). And don’t miss New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin’s stack of titles selected for the beach.

> Edutopia blogger and MiddleWeb contributor Elena Aguilar has some summer book suggestions at her Edutopia blog —for 2012 it’s a mix of professional and personal reading ideas with lots of added ideas from readers.  Her 2013 selections play into her concerns about education and society: dystopian science fiction and challenging nonfiction. Teaching coach Lisa Dabbs does much the same in a post at her blog, Teaching with Soul. Of special interest are summer reading ideas suggested by folks in the new-teachers hashtag group that Lisa facilitates (#ntchat).

> For a visit with magical books, view “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore” by Moonbot Studios LA, LLC. This winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 2011 is available in a $5 interactive version posted at the iTunes store.

> Finally, if you’re looking for just the right professional read, don’t miss MiddleWeb’s large book reviews collection. If you’d like to read a new book and review it for us, get the details here.

Go Beyond the Book

> The next time you are online and missing your school year chats with middle graders, drop by This American Life for their audio hour on students’ perceptions of middle school life.

> In the past year  TED-Ed has mushroomed  to almost  300 videos featuring collaborations between teachers and animators and well over 20,000 ‘flips’ by teachers. Drop by to soak up ideas and learn how you can ‘flip’ the videos into your own lessons this fall. And think about lessons you could submit for the TED-Ed treatment. TED has also ventured into hour-long PBS programming with TED Talks Education.  Up early in the series: Geoffrey Canada, Bill Gates, Rita F. Pierson and Sir Ken Robinson.

> Ready to dive into tech-augmented learning? Summer may be a great time to review your use of web tools and connected learning sites and plan for the future. Writing for Edutopia, Nicholas Provenzano has suggestions to get you started. For a quick overview of how online resources can make teaching more efficient and effective, read Mary Blow’s Scholastic blog post. Richard Byrne at Free Tech for Teachers always has great ed tech ideas to share, including this challenging post from 2012.

> Educators can benefit from a new project at Coursera, the massive online open classroom (MOOC) of free college courses from leading universities. Launched in April 2013, Coursera’s teacher PD category already offers quite a few courses. edX is another option.   Writing at Library Journal’s Digital Shift, Audrey Watters adds her perspective on “MOOC Mania: Debunking the hype around massive open online courses.”  For quicker doses of immediately applicable PD, check ASCD and Ed Week for free new and archived webinars.  Educators can also order other ASCD webinars and Ed Week courses for a fee. Find more summer learning at Powerful Learning Practice  with eCourses which combine digital resources with pedagogy at a range of prices.

Have a Go at Grants

>To augment your classroom’s resources, scout out grant opportunities during the summer months. For a quick overview of foundation grants, visit The Foundation Center’s Philanthropy News Digest which, thankfully, is searchable. Grant Wrangler from Nimble Press offers K-12 teachers a free searchable listing of grants and other resources from foundations, companies, and educational organizations. You can sign up for an emailed newsletter for near-term listings. Possibilities range from grants for a few hundred dollars for quick classroom projects to much more complicated awards.

> And we always scan the latest grant info at the Public Education Newsblast. Now published by the Los Angeles Education Partnership (LAEP), the newsletter is packed with the latest ed news as well as links to funding sources.

Share Your Voice

> Have an itch to write about your educational practice and learning issues that matter to you? Summer can be a good time to plan or launch a blog.  At Free Technology for Teachers, Richard Byrne offers a collection of how-to videos and evaluates hosting platforms. Another way to share your thoughts is to post comments at prominent blogs and ed organization websites. Blog authors and managers love comments!

> For writing opportunities you can add to your vita, consider ASCD’s Educational Leadership and the ASCD Express, which solicit articles from educators by theme. And of course MiddleWeb welcomes book reviewers and proposals for guest articles.

>You can also raise your voice by joining an online professional community. Among the many options are the large and lively ASCD Edge, and Edutopia’s special interest groups, which range from Games and Technology Tools to more general areas like Middle School, Elementary School, Social & Emotional Learning, Education Leadership, New Teacher Connections, and more. Education Week also offers opportunities to share your experience. And what about Twitter? Sign up for free to start posting your 140 character observations.

> Get a headstart on educators to keep up with at Edudemic’s top educational hashtags as well as their list of tweeting education leaders. Both lists were posted in 2012.  For a quick guide to Twitter, visit Powerful Learning Practice’s guide for teachers.  If you’re uneasy about coming out from behind the curtain to express your ideas and opinions, be sure to read Opening the Curtain on Lurking by 4th grade teacher Stephanie Bader.

Update (May 15, 2013): eSchool News has amassed a collection of workshops, conferences, webinars and reading resources at a range of costs to boost educators’ summer PD.

Update (May 15, 2013):  Writing for Scholastic, 4^th grade teacher Meghan Everette shares ideas for funding PD and offers a brief how-to for grant searches.

Check back in early June for more breaking PD news!

It’s face to face, school- or district- or region-wide, sometimes wi-fi’d, and always free. EdCamp is do-it-yourself professional development with sessions led by attendees after lots of planning by volunteers. And it’s popular. This version of the unconference started after several Philadelphia area educators met at BarCamp Philly (an open-format computing conference) in 2009 and saw the potential for educators. Dr. Kristen Swanson, one of those early adaptors, described EdCamp’s origin and its power at TEDxPhiladelphiaED in 2011, a year after the first EdCamp Philly.

At ASCD’s annual conference in March, 2012, Swanson along with colleagues Chrissi Miles and Ann Leaness explained the grassroots movement and showed how to create an EdCamp session. In an article at the EdCamp Foundation website, EdCamp Philly co-founder Kevin Jarrett wrote about the ASCD session, explaining how participants moved from skepticism to enthusiasm for the model.

Jarrett also emphasized that he and other EdCamp advocates are not saying that edcamp-style PD should be the only professional learning experiences available in a school or district. He wrote:

There are plenty of topics that require outside expertise to be brought into a school. Well-respected, experienced experts can do much to help processionals hone the skills they need to be effective in the classroom. But for many, and for too long, that has been the ONLY FOCUS OF DISTRICT PD. And, all too often, those well-respected, experienced experts fail to engage their audiences. The result?  Where we are today. It’s time for a change. It’s time for your district to consider putting the learners – in this case, the teachers – first.”

As a follow-up to the presentation, Swanson created a Storify post, #edcamp Hits ASCD, which includes tweeted links, photos and videos on how to run an EdCamp — plus suggestions from Nicholas Provenzano, Edcamp Detroit organizer, and Karen Blumberg, Edcamp NYC organizer.

EdCamp Philly organizers who started it all (names below)

For background on EdCamps, read Mary Beth Hertz’s 2010 series of posts for Edutopia. Hertz, another EdCamp Philly organizer, explains what EdCamps have borrowed from BarCamps, describes how participants come together to suggest topics and volunteer to lead sessions, and outlines the tasks of planning an EdCamp and finding minimal funding if needed. Elementary principal Peter DeWitt asks and answers questions about the how and why of producing  EdCamps in a post at his Finding Common Ground blog at Ed Week.

M.E. Steele-Pierce, an assistant district superintendent in Ohio, captured the revolutionary excitement of teachers creating their own professional learning in a 2011 post at Voices from the Learning Revolution. She wrote, “I call it magic. But magic it’s not: it’s what creation and collaboration look like as you watch the process unfold before your eyes. It looks like magic because as adults we are so unused to seeing democratic, generative thinking, live, in action.” In addition to laying out the strengths of EdCamps for adult learners, Steele-Pierce also introduced TeachMeet, a British unconference model that features more pre-planning to recruit presenters for brief sessions.

Writing in a recent issue of the Harvard Education Letter, Ed Week blogger Justin Reich and Edcamp Foundation chair and educator Dan Callahan update the EdCamp phenomenon. With 150 EdCamps hosting from 20 to 240 educators in the years since EdCamp Philly, hundreds of teachers have enthusiastically shared their ideas and expertise on a wide range of topics, on Saturdays or district PD days. The HEL article encourages session facilitators to use interactive methods with plenty of opportunity for discussion. Because educators are meeting with others from their schools or districts, they can concentrate on local concerns. Using the Rule of Two Feet, teachers can move from one session to another to capture as many thoughts as possible. Backchanneling, where technologically possible, is rampant.

Shelley Krause & Karen Deaver sharing at EdCamp Philly

You can watch Dan Callahan and other EdCamp organizers answer questions about putting an EdCamp together during a September 2012 webcast at the Edcamp Foundation homepage. The 501(c)3 foundation works to “promote organic, participant-driven professional development for K-12 educators worldwide.” In addition to providing guidelines, blog posts, and breaking news (including a recent partnership with SmartBrief to help fund mini-grants to local EdCamps), the Foundation links to the Edcamp Wiki. There you will find the actual websites of EdCamps past and present, along with even more ideas for creating an EdCamp.

Traditional PD and edcamps have different goals, as Kevin Jarrett suggests above. Some view edcamps as superficial events  led by well-intentioned but inexpert people. In a series of posts at his blog, ReconstructEd, science teacher and Edcamp co-founder Mike Ritzius references critics and then outlines a continuum of PD for educators: “The goals of the PD offering should determine the format. Explicit knowledge – traditional is more effective; tacit knowledge – edcamp is more effective; continuity of message – traditional; continuity of practice – edcamp; introducing an initiative – traditional; bringing an initiative to maturity – edcamp. Both edcamp and traditional methods have merits, but pair them together and truly effective professional development will be achieved.”

UPDATES:

What Makes EdCamps Popular with Teachers? (Tom Whitby, SmartBlog on Education, 10/30/12)

EdCamp Organizer Checklist (Google Doc started by C. McGee – additions & tweaks invited – 11/4/12)

Creating Makerspaces in Schools EdCamp NYC leads to Makerspaces and more. (An Edutopia post by Mary Beth Hertz – 11/6/12)

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Photo 1: at Kristen Swanson’s blog, Teachers as Technology Trailblazers. Pictured: Nicloae Borota, Mary Beth Hertz, Kevin Jarrett, Rob Rowe, Mike Ritztus, Hadley Ferguson, Ann Leaness, Kristen Swanson, Christine Miles, Kim Sivick, Dan Callahan

Photo 2: by Kevin Jarrett at Tech & Learning

You can access professional development over the summer without racing through airports or hitting your bank account. The computer is your friend, and one of the friendliest activities it will host is micro-blogging, thanks to Twitter. Besides your own 140-character missives (it takes some practice to say a lot in a little space), you can find hundreds of educators sharing how-to’s, infographics, and other interesting pedagogical finds. Blogging at their site AskteacherZ: Inspirational Education, two Michigan teachers make the case for PD through tweeting, noting not only the shared ideas but also the grassroots, isolation-breaking community experience.

If you are new to Twitter, read Daniel Edwards’ story of his evolution from skeptic to devotee in “Teachers – The 10 Stages of Twitter.” And if you’re an old hand, read the UK educator’s post for several good laughs. Total novices can get started with eight brief videos from David Wees, an educator who provides learning support for technology at an IB school in Canada and also facilitates the Edutopia Assessment group.

When you are ready to move beyond writing occasional tweets and searching out folks to follow, Twitter fan Cybraryman (Jerry Blumengarten, who tweets at @cybraryman1) has a huge cache of Twitter-related resources amid his extensive collection of education topics for teachers, parents, and students. Blumengarten shares his list of preferred Tweeters arranged by content area, grade, and other categories. He also provides a list of education hashtags. Among the most useful for grade 4-8 educators are #4thchat, #5thchat, #6thchat, #elechat, #midleved, #mschat, #ntchat (for new teachers), #tlchat (for teacher librarians), and #edtech. And don’t miss the uber-ed-hashtag, #edchat, which Blumengarten highlights. For an explanation on how to create and follow hashtags, visit the new Twitter guide from Powerful Learning Practice. PLP’s guide also includes lots of suggestions for making Twitter a part of your classroom.

If you are curious about how all this hashtagging got started, the NYT’s Learning Network has archived an interview with several of the instigators.

With so many Twitter-happy educators to keep up with, you may want to impose some organization on your tweeting. Programs like TweetDeck and HootSuite can help you arrange tweeters by subject, schedule tweets, and more. And if it’s all flying by too fast sometimes, bookmark TweetChat, which specializes in slowing down the pace of tweets — especially useful if you’re participating in a live hashtag chat with a large and/or excited group of participants.

Artwork: Chris Davis, Powerful Learning Practice