Florida teachers gain full-time access to digital resources

A key goal of the Florida Department of Education’s Digital Educator Program is to is to train educators to integrate technology into their curriculum. Another goal is to facilitate professional development.  The Digital Educator Program took a step to advance both goals when it recently forged an agreement with the School Improvement Network (SINET).

The agreement, funded through the Department’s Office of Technology Learning & Innovation, allows all Florida educators to have 24/7 access to the online learning resources of PD 360.

PD 360 offers access to over a thousand short video segments that present real classroom and best-practice examples. In addition to its content library, it provides integrated follow-up tools, reflection activities, tracking, collaboration and community discussion forums, file sharing, and social networking. Approximately 350,000 educators throughout the U.S. and Canada are licensed through their schools, districts, and states to access the program.

“I have found that School Improvement Network’s PD 360 is an outstanding professional learning tool for educators,” said Dr. Kate Kemker, Director, Technology and Innovation, Florida Department of Education. ”PD 360 will allow us to better integrate technology into our curriculum by providing Florida educators with comprehensive technology training.”

This agreement also allows Florida to incorporate their own state-developed professional learning content to customize PD 360 for their schools. In addition, SINET will provide training via both online resources and in person to allow for effective use of the features available.

“The Florida Department of Education has become a leader in improving the education outcomes for their students and they know that the key requirement to improving this outcome is to have quality teachers,” said Chet Linton, CEO, School Improvement Network. “PD 360 will allow Florida schools to provide quality comprehensive training to their teachers on the topics they deem most important. Plus, they will be able to incorporate training unique to their schools into the PD 360 platform.”