OPLS blog

The professional development team at the IB are pleased to announce the release of our 2009 calendar of online workshops for teachers. These workshops currently appear in a calendar for each of the IB’s programme’s:

Primary Years Programme
Middle Years Programme
Diploma Programme

Our online workshop provision is likely to increase throughout 2009, hence teachers and coordinators are advised to regularly check for updates ( this can be done automatically by selecting to receive notification of page updates, this option is available on all calendars).

This year’s online workshops will begin across all IB programmes on Monday 26th January 2009 (registrations for this iteration will close on Friday 16th January).

As part of our commitment to increasing the standard of the professional development of IB teachers, this year the certificates issued at the conclusion of a workshop will be awarded showing a level of engagement, this will be reached through reflection by both participant and workshop leader.

There is a comprehensive Frequently Asked Questions section on our professional development website, however if you require more information please contact the online workshop team.

A colleague (thanks Tim) recently alerted me to an interesting wiki Mike Shaw has created for the IB’s Learner Profile. Mike has linked the profile’s attributes with a series of ICT challenges for teacher professional development, eg risk-takers and the use of mobile phones in the classroom.

I particularly liked the links Mike has made with online translators and the attribute: Communicators. Not as straight forward as it sounds.

Take a look here when you have time and try some of the challenges for yourself.

Good work, Mike. Well done.