Have you looked at PD Mosaic lately?
Some of you already know PD Mosaic as a website where you can find articles and resources for the professional development of teachers and other educators.
Recent developments and next steps
This year, I am focusing on sharing teacher stories and adding those to the resources on the site. I consider PD Mosaic in constant development because we are always honing our craft – always looking for ways to connect our students to their learning, to manage our classrooms, to make things more interesting, to make things better. A big part of my job is listening to you – teachers, consultants, directors, support staff – and making sure that the resources you need and want are available. Last year, a number of people said that it would be great to see concrete resources that relate directly to Adult Ed in Quebec. So now, I am working on a series of video capsules showcasing teachers in Quebec’s Adult Education community doing some pretty great things with technology. Here are the PD Mosaic tiles that include the stories we have so far – click on the images to go to the tiles on PD Mosaic.
In the works are tiles on Formative Assessment, Stations, and Digital Citizenship – all with an Adult Education focus and concrete examples from centres in Quebec.
If you have ideas for specific tiles or resources to add to existing tiles – please contact me. I would love to talk with you about them!
Some useful features
Anybody can use the site as a guest but when you register to the site, you can access a few other features that you may find useful.
Useful feature 1 – language switcher
PD Mosaic was initially developed in English but it now houses tiles in both French and English. You can also access it in English as PD Mosaic or in French as Pedago Mosaique. If you are not logged in, you can switch languages at the top of each page but if you are logged in you can select your preferred language in your account settings. At all times, you can access both French and English resources.
Useful feature 2 – organizing
The resources are organized in tiles and, once you register, you can group tiles together in two ways – as ‘Want it‘, for the things you want to learn more about, or ‘Got it‘, for those things you already know a lot about. Each of these groupings then, become your own Professional Development Mosaic.
Why is this useful? If you are interested in creating a portfolio of your professional learning, for personal use or to share with others, this can be a great way to organize where you are and where you want to go in your PD.
Useful feature 3 – Note taking
As you work through the tiles that interest you, you will notice a new area on the right side of your screen for note taking. If you have not yet made a note on that tile, it will look like this Click on the image to see it larger.
If you do have a note it will look like this, Click on the image to see it larger.
You can also see and edit all of the notes you have created in one central area, like this Click on the image to see it larger.
Why is this useful? It’s a great way to remember your learning, your aha moments, your ‘ugh, this will never work’ thoughts over time and keep everything in the same place to reflect on at different times in the school year or over many years.
Useful feature 4 – Survey
Some of you may remember a tool that the RECIT created called My ICT Ease. Basically it was a questionnaire to guide a reflection on where you were in terms of using technology for teaching and learning. That tool is no longer available and some people have asked for something similar. So we developed a new questionnaire to guide a reflection on your teaching practice in general and then how technology fits into that practice. Like My ICT Ease, the survey can be answered multiple times and you can compare earlier results to your latest results. Click on the image to see it larger.
Why is this useful? If you fill out the survey, PD Mosaic can then suggest relevant resources based on the answers you provided. It can also fit nicely into the idea of keeping a professional portfolio as it includes visual representations of your answers at specific periods in time. Click on the image to see it larger.
***You may not be interested in filling out the survey. No problem! It is not at all mandatory.***
And there you go – some of PD Mosaic’s recent developments and useful features that you might not have known about!