Suggestions for Broadening Your EdTech Skill Set

It's the summer when many of us teachers try to think of ways to expand our horizons and broaden our skills so we can better reach each and every one of our students. With this in mind, a friend of mine from graduate school who is making Aliyah, just messaged me the following concerning ideas for learning more about the world of educational technology.

I'm moving to Israel this summer and was wondering if you're familiar with any online, or in Israel, Ed tech certifications. I'm not sure when I'll begin working so I figured this is something that could keep me a little busy and hopefully broaden my skill set.

I responded to him and then realized that it might be worth sharing with my larger Personal Learning Network. I know that I have blogged about many of these in the past but i am hoping this very short list can serve as a refresher and a motivator for many of us (myself included) who need to be reminded of the importance of finding ways to consistently grow as effective educators.

My response appears below.

Here are some options.
1) You can try an online certificate through MOFET International.

Full disclosure, I teach one of their courses.

 Using Web 2.0 Tools to Transform Teaching and Learning

2) You can become a Google Certified Teacher. They offer free online training and then you just pay for the tests which are not a lot of money. Or you can find trainers who will offer training towards Google certification. 

3) You can take a MOOC, a Massive Open Online Course. These courses can be excellent but require a great deal of self motivation. 

MIT is starting a 4 course series in EdTech. The first day is tomorrow, July 14, 2016, but since they are self-paced you could start later. Check them out at: EdTechX: Educational Technology XSeries Program I am enrolled in the first course. The courses are free to audit and you could go for a verified certificate for $99 a course.

I am also enrolled in Harvard's CS50 MOOC which is an introduction to computer science. It is a challenging course but is excellent. Here is a link to the EdX version of the course: HarvardX's CS50 

• I blogged about the experience of taking this course last summer: 5 Lessons That I Have Learned from Harvard's CS50 As you can tell, I only have time to take these types of courses over the summer so I started this past summer and am continuing now. 

4) You can reach out to one of the online EdTech providers in Israel. I am friends with Smadar Goldstein who runs JETS Israel. 

You can view their Fall 2016 schedule here. 

5) You can take #EdTech30, a free online course by my friend, Seth Dimbert, AKA MisterD featuring 30 edtech applications presented in 30 days. The last round of this course ended in May 2016 but the entire course is archived online to take anytime.
Would love to hear how it goes.

This is obviously a very short list of free or low-cost EdTech Professional Development opportunities. Please share your own by commenting to this post.