Nano-Professional Development: 20 Quick Courses For Teachers

by TeachThought Staff

Professional development can come from a variety of sources–conversation, books, blogs, social media, YouTube, and more–courses, for example. Nanocourses, more specifically.

What’s most appealing about these courses is the low time-investment necessary, combined with the visual elements–examples, models, and other explanations to support what’s being explained. All but two of the following courses for teachers are 5 hours or less in length, and can supplement your reading and school-based PD usefully.

Also note, though we have gone in and hand-picked these courses for relevance and even instructors (Monica Burns, who has published on both TeachThought and edutopia, is among the instructors), these are also affiliate links, which means we get a small percentage of any purchase you might make. To keep this from happening, you can simply go directly to udemy.com and search for the specific course.

Update: The courses are on sale through November 27. There is a kind of urgency to the sale, as the price increases a dollar a day (so Monday, November 23 they’ll be $13, Tuesday they’ll be $14, and so on).

Nano-Professional Development: 20 Quick Courses For Teachers

1. The Power Of Play

Time To Complete: 2 Hours

This course will give you the knowledge you need to support your children as well as you possibly can. We will illustrate techniques that will help you know when and how to support your children’s creative play. And we’ll give you some new play ideas that are great fun to put into practice.

• The difference between various play styles
• How play impacts on early learning and development
• How to identify if children need encouragement in other types of play
• What to do if you spot obstacles to play in the setting
• Four practical techniques to encourage your children to think and play more creatively

2. How To Use Google Classroom

Time To Complete: 3 Hours

Are you a teacher in a Google Apps for Education district? If not, will you be going Google soon? If so, take advantage of this course on the Google Classroom. Teachers of all levels; elementary, secondary, post-secondary will benefit from using Google Classroom as an online learning platform. This is a comprehensive course covering topics from the basics of classroom, to how you can use it with your students, to lessons to teach your students how to use the application to a final side-by-side view of the teacher and student platforms.

• Create and customize a Google Class; Add and remove students from a class
• Create and distribute assignments; Grade and change the point value of assignments; Give feedback to students
• Create a class resource page; Access the classroom folder on the Google Drive
• Log in and join a class as a student; Change account settings as a student
• Complete and turn in assignments as a student; View returned assignments as a student

3. Moving Beyond Compliance: Classroom Manangement

Time To Complete: 5 Hours

This effective classroom management course presents an alternative classroom management approach rooted in intrinsic motivation and designed to create a learning environment in which children work hard, work together, and work with purpose.

• Course Goal: By the end of the course, you will be able to implement a progressive approach to classroom management that fosters responsibility, nurtures intrinsic motivation, and brings out the best in students.
• Course Objectives: National Board Certified Teacher Steve Reifman will present a series of classroom-tested ideas, strategies, activities, and resources that will help teachers:
• • encourage students to invest their hearts and minds in the class mission
• • establish a strong sense of purpose in their classrooms so that students find meaning in their work, experience joy, and understand the many reasons why pursuing an education matters so much for their futures
• • empower students with lasting habits of mind and habits of character

4. Apps For Librarians & Educators

Time To Complete: 4 Hours

As librarians and educators, we are passionate about learning and access to information for all. Contrary to the popular idea that apps are only useful for “consumption,” the best mobile apps are being used effectively as tools to enable learning and knowledge creation.

• Understand how tablets are complementary to and different from laptops, and how their capabilities are creating new learning opportunities.
• Understand how apps are being used by people with special needs, and get access to resources for learning more.
• Get inspiration for creating your own app guides, offering workshops, and advising colleagues.
• Get up to speed quickly: watch video demos and follow along on your own mobile device

5. Integrating Technology In The Classroom

Time To Complete: 5 Hours

Learn how to use free/low cost technology tools for teaching and learning in your classroom. Keep up-to-date with latest tech tools curated by an instructional technology expert.

• Understand the Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling
• Create Digital Stories
• How to use Photo Story 3
• How to use and create videos with Movie Maker
• How to use and create videos with Wevideo

6. Use iPads & Twitter In The Classroom To Enrich Learning

Time To Complete: 2 Hours

For the beginner or expert, this course demonstrates how to use microblogging and Twitter as a classroom learning tool.  The techniques shown in the step by step videos capitalize on the power of the iPad and Twitter to enrich learning activities in your classroom.

• Extend your learning activities beyond the time and space of your classroom
• Search, filter and find valuable topical resources and colleagues
• Create and send microblog entries using Twitter
• Capitalize on the features and functions of the iPad in multiple learning activities

7. Using QR Codes In The Classroom

Time To Complete: 2 Hours

This course is for educators with access to a variety of mobile technology who are looking to use QR codes to differentiate and energize their lessons. Participants will learn how to make QR codes and use them to create engaging, differentiated lessons for their students. The material is appropriate for teachers in K-12 classrooms.

• In this course, you will learn how to make QR codes.
• In this course, you will learn how to design activities for differentiated instruction.
• In this course, you will learn how to use QR codes to energize your lessons.

8. The iPad Toolkit For Teachers

Time To Complete: 6 Hours

This course guides teachers through a variety of iPad tools that help them understand how to use the iPad, use the iPad as a tool for themselves as professionals and use the iPad as a way of interacting and communicating with students.

• By the end of this course, you will be able to use the iPad as an organizational tool
• By the end of this course, you will be able to use the iPad in order to communicate and collaborate with students
• By the end of this course, you will know how to use various iPad productivity apps

9. Moodle Tutorial Development

Time To Complete: 3 Hours

Moodle Tutorial Development will show you how to teach online using Moodle through a series of informative and incredibly detailed video screencasts. Learn how to make the most out of Moodle by following along with detailed video demonstrations covering how to configure and use Moodle’s features to create an e-learning site designed to meet your learner’s needs. By the time you complete the Moodle Tutorial Development video course you’ll be able to create an e-learning site that will enhance your teaching and provide a better learning experience for your students.

• Learn about Moodle’s potential and how to get started with an overview of various hosting and installation options
• Setup your Moodle site and make it available to users after it’s been installed on a web server
• Create course sites and make them available by enrolling students and assigning teachers
• Make static resources such as files or web pages available to your learners
• Produce more interactive e-learning courses with course materials such as quizzes, lessons, and SCORM tutorials

10. Teach With Your iPad, Part 1

Time To Complete: 1 Hour

Some courses for teachers are quick. This one is for educators with access to a single iPad who are looking to use this technology to instruct, assess and manage their classroom. Participants will learn how free and low-cost apps can revolutionize their instruction.

• By the end of this course, you will be able to use free and low-cost apps with a single iPad to instruct, assess, and manage a classroom of students.
• In this course, you will learn how to instruct a class using one iPad.
• In this course, you will learn how to assess a class using one iPad.
• In this course, you will learn how to manage a class using one iPad.

11. Prezi For Educators

Time To Complete: 2 Hours

Use PowerPoint all the time? Sounds boring! Spice up your presentations and bolster them with creativity. Allow your students to create mind boggling presentations. Prezi is for everyone. Prezi can be intimidating for first time users. However, it is really easy to master. This course will teach you fundamentals of Prezi with Educators and Teachers in mind.

• How to acquire an Educational License
• Mastering the Prezi interface
• How to Draw “Frames, Arrows, and Lines” and add “Symbols, Shapes, and Diagrams”
• How to add Videos, Background Music, and Voice-overs to Prezi; add PowerPoint & PDF Files to Prezi
• How to use sharing and collaboration tools such as remote presentation

12. Teach with the iPad – Inspire, Engage and Mentor with EdTech

Time To Complete: 5 Hours

This iPad course is unique in that it not only highlights some of the best educational iPad apps available, but it also shows you how to implement the iPad into your classroom and how to use the iPad as a highly-effective teaching tool. The iPad is quickly becoming the most innovative and exciting technology-based teaching tool to come along in years. Many schools across the country have purchased iPads for their students however comprehensive and essential training to properly utilize the full power of the iPad and its best educational apps is not available.

• How iPads and how they work in the classroom
• How to use the iPad for assessment
• How you can use the iPad and iPad apps in daily lessons
• Create an iPad program
• Introduction to flip teaching and flip teaching app

13. Camtasia Mastery

Time To Complete: 8 Hours

Flipped Classroom? Camtasia Mastery is for everyone who uses Camtasia Studio to make videos. From beginners learning what the program is about, to experienced users who want to learn how to take animations and hosting to the next level, this course has loads of information for learners of all experience levels.