PD 360 is an online library of educational professional development

Professional development

Professional development refers to skills and knowledge attained for both personal development and career advancement. Professional development encompasses all types of facilitated learning opportunities, ranging from college degrees to formal coursework, conferences and informal learning...

 video programs broken into segments. The product was developed by the School Improvement Network

School Improvement Network

School Improvement Network, founded in 1991, is a privately owned national education company based in Midvale, Utah, USA. The company develops, distributes and markets various professional development product lines...

. The segments are topical based with classroom examples featuring various educational experts. PD 360 has increased student achievement in schools in North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

.

Basic Operation

PD 360 is an on-demand professional learning system for teachers and educators, with a series of tools built around a library of video segments. The video segments are streamed to the end user in the Flash Video format (FLV)

FLV

Flash Video is a container file format used to deliver video over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player versions 6–11. Flash Video content may also be embedded within SWF files. There are two different video file formats known as Flash Video: FLV and F4V. The audio and video data within FLV files...

, using progressive streaming technology. The videos focus on pedagogical topics such as differentiated instruction

Differentiated instruction

Differentiated instruction involves providing students with different avenues to acquiring content; to processing, constructing, or making sense of ideas; and to developing teaching materials so that all students within a classroom can learn effectively, regardless of differences in...

, English language learners (ELL), instructional strategies, classroom management

Classroom management

Classroom management is a term used by teachers to describe the process of ensuring that classroom lessons run smoothly despite disruptive behavior by students. The term also implies the prevention of disruptive behavior. It is possibly the most difficult aspect of teaching for many teachers;...

, and many others. As a user watches a video, the user can answer related reflection questions about that video—which questions help the user focus on how to implement what is learned in the classroom. The user can also go to related discussion forums and pull up a related facilitator guide. PD 360 is built in Flex

Adobe Flex

Adobe Flex is a software development kit released by Adobe Systems for the development and deployment of cross-platform rich Internet applications based on the Adobe Flash platform...

, as a Flash application, so Flash is required for its operation.
The application is hosted by School Improvement Network, but the video content can either be hosted by a school or district, or be accessed through the Internet. The video is distributed through hundreds of data centers around the world through a CDN (Content Distribution Network)

Content Delivery Network

A content delivery network or content distribution network is a system of computers containing copies of data placed at various nodes of a network....

. The CDN is currently Level 3.

Observation 360 is a sister product to PD 360 that allows principals and other instructional leaders to do an observation or walkthrough of a teacher using an iPad

IPad

The iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. The iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010 by Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs. Its size and...

 or iPod Touch

IPod touch

The iPod Touch is a portable media player, personal digital assistant, handheld game console, and Wi-Fi mobile device designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The iPod Touch adds the multi-touch graphical user interface to the iPod line...

. Observation 360 is linked to PD 360, so that as teachers get the results of their observation, they also get prescriptive guidance on what learning segments they should use in PD 360—based on the results of the observation.

History

PD 360 version 1 was released in June 2007, following a beta that had been released in November 2006. Version 1 contained basic viewing and searching capability. Version 2 released in November 2007 and added the capability to customize content a viewer sees based on the specific needs of a district. Version 3 released in November 2008 and added reporting capability so that customers could track and see usage. Version 4 released in summer of 2009 and added a learning community, with forums and file sharing between users. Version 3.5 released in November 2009 and added the ability to have colleagues, create membership-based groups, and launched a beta of the achievements program—whereby users can get points for various things accomplished in PD 360. Version 4 will release in November 2010. Details about version 4 have not been released.
PD 360 has grown to over 650,000 users, over 17,000 schools, and over 2,000 districts—with districts in all 50 states and every province of Canada.

Awards

2010 Bronze Telly Award

Telly Awards

The Telly Award is an award presented by the namesake, New York City-based organization. The stated purpose of the award is to "honor the very best local, regional, and cable television commercials and programs, as well as the finest video and film productions, and work created for the Web." The...

 for online video production: High School

2009 Adobe Max

Adobe MAX

The Adobe MAX is an annual event held by Adobe Systems in North America, Europe and Japan. The purpose of the event is to promote the latest Adobe releases to those in the computer design and development industries....

 Award winner in education: PD 360

2009 Codie Award

Codie awards

The CODiE awards are annual awards issued by the Software and Information Industry Association for excellence in software development within the software industry....

 finalist in the category of Best Professional Development Solution: PD 360

2009 Scholastic Best in Tech Award: PD 360