Great News from Brooklyn

The Great PD has big news to report. Coursera, about which you can read below if you haven't heard of them yet, has accepted the teacher development course that TGPD designed and will shoot, edit and produce within the next few months. 

This is a big deal. Coursera is already offering on-line classes that tens of thousands of people around the world participate in. They are all different, but seem to be part of the wave of the future of higher education, as long as college tuitions keep rising out of the reach of so many of the world's citizens. 

Plotnik has looked into several of these -- you can take a free course on practically any subject, taught on line with help and feedback from all the people taking it at the same time. The professor might be at Stanford or Harvard or Relay Graduate School of Education (PD's affiliation), but the students could be in Wichita, London or an internet cafe in Zambia. 

Imagine. Plotnik wants to study digital recording. He takes a class. It is taught or was recorded in Cupertino. Someone from New York comments and someone from Oregon responds and someone else from Japan disagrees. You learn from the professor and also from your classmates, in real time. This is truly mind-expanding.

TGP is very proud of his boy while at the same time astonished at what is happening to the world we have always known. Everything changes and eventually we do too.

Here's part of the announcement:

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Coursera Announces Professional Development Courses to Facilitate Lifelong Learning for Teachers

Leading Professional Development Institutions and Schools of Education To Provide Free Online Courses for Teacher Training

Mountain View, CA - May 1, 2013 – Coursera, a leading Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) provider, today announced that it has partnered with top professional development programs and schools of education to open up training and development courses to teachers worldwide, for free.

Eight leading schools of education have joined, including the College of Education, University of Washington; Curry School of Education, University of Virginia; Johns Hopkins University School of Education; Match Education’s Sposato Graduate School of Education; Peabody College of education and human development, Vanderbilt University; Relay Graduate School of Education; University of California, Irvine Extension; and University of Michigan School of Education.

Additionally joining Coursera’s network of partners are educational institutions and museums including the American Museum of Natural History; The Commonwealth Education Trust; Exploratorium; The Museum of Modern Art; and New Teacher Center.

The new courses, listed on Coursera’s course directory under the category Teacher Professional Development, will offer teachers, parents and those who teach in any context a broad range of learning topics, areas of expertise, and pedagogies, all from esteemed organizations working to build stronger education systems. Initial courses will cover diverse subjects including content development, the common core curriculum, teaching through tinkering, character education, and implementing flipped and blended learning strategies...