Planned Professional Growth - What are your professional learning goals this summer?

This post is week 1 of 8 in the 8 Weeks of Summer Blog Challenge for educators. 

I had found out about this blog challenge last year. I took part! I was the winner!
I am taking part again! It's not about the prize. (If I win again, I would like to donate the prize to someone who really needs it.)  It's about the fact that blogging makes me keep my mind occupied. I don't particularly like the summer because I have nothing to do. I find things that keep me busy until the school year beginns.

Let's begin with our first task.
I live in Greece. Some time around May, before the school year ends, most of Foreign language publishers organize events to promote their books and materials. It is not only book presentations, I have been to a lot of interesting lectures lately.

• Oxford University Press day - Teaching for Life with wonderful sessions about storytelling and how to involve students in the stories. 
• Express Publishing event - Introducing Generation C: A new generation of parents, students and teachers
• York Press Day - Connecting with the video generation / Changing managerial mindset / Innovation the correct answer to most questions (the last one was performed by a very well knwn Greek marketing manager and it was very refreshing)
• Burlington books: The implications of self-awareness in teaching (by a very well known educational psycologist)

All these face to face events are indeed very informative, you can get new ideas, take a look at new books that you might need for your next school year and it also gives you the chance to "mingle", have some coffee and snacks, meet colleagues and exchange thoughts and opinions. I highly recommend these events to colleagues and they take place all year round, not only when summer beginns.

But I can understand that we don't always have the time to go to events that need our physical presence, so there are also various online events, courses and seminars.

Here are some that I am going to attend (or watch recordings):

• For German Teachers here are the recordings of DaFWEBCON with lots of interesting ideas about teaching German.
• For English Teachers who couldn't attend (like me), here are the recordings of IATEFL 2019 In my opinion this is an event that nobody should miss, It's definitely an experience. 
• IATEFL also holds webinars every month. Check our their site over here. 
• Wonderful ideas and tutorials, information, webinars on the German language could also be found on the derdieDaF portal (by Klett Verlag)
• Another wonderful site with recording of webinars with teaching ideas is National Geographic. 
• A way to continue your professional growth is to keep studying. You can find wonderful courses, a space of collaboration in the Teacher's room,  a very interesting blog and lots of interesting material in the itdi page.

But professional growth doesn't always have to do with teaching. Maybe you would like to learn a new language. Or aquire a new business skill like using Social Media for your work. Or learn about a new culture. For this purpose, I recommend Future Learn. I am sure that you will find something that suits your needs and your likes.

So this was my first post for this challenge. Until next week.