You Tube for Professional Development: or what I Learned Making iPads in the Classroom

Friday I had a conversation with Dave Brooks a colleague and a friend. He is also the person who seems to be two steps ahead of me in his thinking. Well, a few steps ahead of most of us. My favorite example is MOOCs, that he has been running for 15+ years on his servers.

During our conversation he mentioned that he watched one of my iPads in the Classroom shows recently. I smiled, he said "how are planning you monetize it?" I looked back somewhat quizzically. He continued: "This is a new area you should write it up. Writing is how we academics monetize". I whole heartedly agreed.

So what have we learned making iPads in the Classroom?
Just do it- don't wait until you know what you're doing. The medium is new and the only way to move forward and create something meaningful is to try. Everything about the show has changed. It is shorter, snappier, easier to make.
Keep changing- listen to your audience and team and make changes that allow you to deliver a better PD product.
Learn from others. We are constantly looking at other outlets trying to see what may work for us. Our original model was "iPad Today". More recently we've been looking at "AppleBytes"
PD is unlike other media. Content and quality rule. This limits how much you can learn from other video outlets.
Persistence- perhaps the hardest thing is to keep producing. But viewership and feedback come only if you keep at it.

Simple I know but as more PD goes online it is important that we learn from each other!