National Geographic Offers Free Online Courses for Teachers

This fall National Geographic will offer two free online courses for teachers. Facilitating Learning Through Outdoor Watershed Education will be held September 17 to October 29, 2014. Water: The Essential Resource will be held October 15 to December 17, 2014. Both courses are hosted on the Coursera platform.

Here is National Geographic's explanation of Facilitating Learning Through Outdoor Watershed Education:
This course is designed for classroom teachers of Grades 4-9 to learn about watersheds and outdoor education using the Chesapeake Bay watershed as an example. The course introduces engaging technologies for investigating watersheds and helps you plan and effectively implement outdoor experiences.

This is National Geographic's explanation of Water: The Essential Resource:
This course, framed around California's Education and the Environment Initiative (EEI), focuses on ocean and freshwater topics and strategies for teaching environmental topics in Grades 4-8. Resources and support are provided for how to use EEI to implement Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy.

Learn With Coursera on Your iPad or Android Tablet

Coursera is a great place to find free online open courses for personal and professional learning. Coursera currently has more than 600 courses available through its catalog. Most courses include short video lectures, interactive quizzes, and peer graded assessments.

This month Coursera released an updated iPad app and a new Android app. Both apps allow students to browse for courses, register for courses, and participate in courses. The apps also allow students to download course videos to view offline.

Applications for Education
The boom in MOOCs and other online course offerings means that students don't have to go far to find courses to meet their intellectual needs. If you have a high school student with an interest in a subject that your school doesn't offer, Coursera is a good place for that student to turn to for self-guided study.

H/T to The Next Web. 

30 Free Teacher PD Courses

Earlier this week I wrote a post about places to search for free online courses. One resource that I neglected to mention and subsequently had many people on Google+ remind me of is Coursera. Earlier this spring Coursera announced a new category of courses, Teacher Professional Development. Currently, thirty courses are scheduled in the new Teacher PD category. The next course begins in July.


Applications for Education
Coursera's new teacher PD courses include topics like First Year Teaching, Virtual Instruction, Assessment, and Developing Relationships. You will also find courses that are content specific. For example, there are courses on Genetics and Society, Introductory Physics, and Art.