ET Team Member, Kate Piland, gets a Shoutout for Professional Learning Ideas

Our very own ET Team Member, Kate Piland, found herself and a former colleague the subject of a shout-out for professional learning ideas in a recent Cult of Pedagogy article, “OMG Becky. PD is Getting So Much Better!!”

Kate Piland and Dr. Virginia Duncan

This amazing article details some creative ways that professional learning is taking place in schools across the country. One of those schools is Liberal High School of USD 480 in Liberal, Kansas, where our own Kate Piland was a technology integrationist as recently as just last year.

Kate and her former colleague, Dr. Virginia Duncan, created an awesome program of professional learning where teachers earn badges for completing challenges that have been created ahead of time online. You can find out more about it in the article under #7, Microcredentials. See a sample of one of their challenges and even look through their poster presentation for ISTE 2016. Make sure to check out the included links to their challenge projects as they will certainly get your wheels spinning about creative PD in your own school. Their Innovation Factory is something else!

Virginia and Kate were part of ISTE’s Ed Tech Coaches Playground in 2016 and will be presenting a poster session called “Get Your PL in Gear” this summer at ISTE in Chicago. We have no doubt they are going to light a fire of inspiration for professional learning ideas in a lot of attendees.

We should also mention that Liberal USD 480 is not only Kate’s former employer, but also one of our great customers. Both Liberal High School and Meadowlark Elementary School in Liberal, Kansas, were selected for the Kansans Can School Redesign Project. The new school designs are slated for launch in the 2018-19 school year, and we can’t wait to see what other great fruit this district will produce (besides Kate Piland!).