District/Building Level Provide PD, How can we maximize it?

Professional Development days for teachers sometimes get a bad rap.  I remember in my 8 years of being in the classroom the moans of teachers as they travel to the meetings during early outs or come to a day without students.  "Why can't we just work in our classrooms?", or "I'm a PE teacher and this has nothing to do with me."  We have all heard the phrases or even said the phrase ourselves.  How can PD days become more engaging and pertinent to every staff member?  Well, at Webb City we have tried some different things and maybe these points can help.

1. Conference Type PD Day (Teacher's Choice):  We have a district wide PD day in January we run like a conference.  Sessions are presented by staff members and attendees can choose from a wide variety of sessions.  We encourage our staff to choose sessions that will help them in their classroom.  We even have named it Professional Communicty Learning Together (PCLT).
2. Small Groups:  Out High School have taken on PD days in the building as the opportunity to break up into small groups and rotate through different sessions that are planned.  This helps greatly with engagement and involvement in the different presentations.  We usually end up with groups of around 10-20.
3. 1 on 1 Time:  Most of my big group presentations are just overviews of a tool.  When someone wants to use a new tool I usually meet with them 1 on 1 and we are able to figure out what the tool or strategy can do for them.  This does take a lot of time, but it is well worth the time and effort if you have staff to do this.
4. BE POSITIVE:  If presenters and facilitators are excited to present and share then the day will always go better.  I really do enjoy helping teachers and this is one of the things that keeps me going, and if I bring this enthusiasm over my presentations it always pays off. 

Tools that might help to implement some of the strategies.

Sched.org  - Scheduling program that will help you manage a Conference.  $99 dollars per event, but well worth the price to be able to manage sessions and enrollment.  We have used it for 2 years and I think that it has freed up so much time.

Google Forms - Use this to create surveys that will help guide what sessions to offer and what topics you should be covered during professional development.  

Twitter - Back channel information and social side to professional development.  We have used a hashtag for our district and have hosed Twitter chats through the hashtag.  This creates a buzz for your event and also can create some great sharing between staff member of different buildings.

youcanbook.me - Booking program that links to Google Calendar.  This has made my job so much easier.  You simply set it up and post it on a site or give it to your staff and then you just manage your Google Calendar and it will notify you when you have meetings with teachers and will even email you depending on how you set it up.