Specializing in Teaching and Training

Thank you for visiting PalmettoLearning.com. Palmetto Learning is an educational consulting and training firm. Whether you’re looking for a dynamic speaker for your next event, help developing a product for the educational market, or training on Google products, I can help.

On the right side, you can see my services. You will notice they are all linked to real life examples of how I have worked with real clients. If I can serve you in any way, please feel free to contact me using the form or any of the methods on the right.

Hoping to serve you soon!

- Dr. Chris Craft

Each year I make the trek from South Carolina to Philadelphia for Educon. This is my third (or fourth) year in a row and I thoroughly enjoy this conference. My enthusiasm is partly due to the chance to see people I respect and care for, as well as colleagues from whom I learn much. This year I am not presenting, yet I am on a mission to refine my thinking in a few areas. To that end, I am looking for sessions that are openly skeptical of some of the typically-spouted rhetoric espoused by educational thinkers. There are quite a few sessions that fit the bill, and I am thrilled at the chance to learn. If you’re going to Educon, make sure to say hello! Perhaps get in touch to make sure we get the chance. Here’s to learning! And this year, here’s to no snow!

Columbia, South Carolina is home to the National Advocacy Center. The NAC is the principal training center for the US Department of Justice to train US Attorneys from around the country.

When the Office of Legal Education (inside the NAC) needed an expert to teach US Attorneys about Instructional Design, they called me. I was honored to be brought to the NAC for two days to teach as a part of the inaugural Instructional Design Symposium. I spent time with brilliant US Attorneys working through the existing ways they teach and helping them redesign courses in line with research on instructional design. We talked through such topics as:

• The Fundamentals of Instructional Design
• Human Cognition
• Motivating Learners
• Presentation Design

The sessions were well received and the attorneys were given time immediately following the sessions to apply what they had learned. The courses that emerged and the discussions were thoroughly satisfying. I was glad to have been a part of this important work! Thank you to the US Department of Justice and the Office of Legal Education for inviting me to be a part of the symposium.

On Saturday, November 19 I had the pleasure of teaching a group of educators from around South Carolina how to use Google products with their new iPads. The teachers we a part of a grant program designed to help these teachers incorporate new technologies into their classrooms.

The training was lots of fun to give, and it was a full day of learning. Here is the agenda for the day.

Thanks to the amazing teachers who came to learn on Saturday!

On November 2, 2011 I had the pleasure of traveling to Wagener, SC to present to teachers at Wagener Salley High School. The school had an early release day and they asked me to come in and talk with them about a few topics. I presented three sessions, leaving time for teachers to try out the different ideas that were presented. Here are the sessions I presented:

• Chasing our Tails? The realities of student engagement.
• Don’t Read to Me: A Presentation on presentations
• PollEverywhere Demo and use with students

Chris shows off his PAWS Promise bracelet in Wagener SC

Chris is clearly glad to be there!

The training was a lot of fun to conduct, as evidenced by my big smile as I took the picture in their library! Big thanks to my friend Heather Loy for facilitating my journey to Wagener.

Recently our local news station WLTX came to visit my classroom to see what my kids were working on. Here is the resulting news story (link to full story).

Having WLTX visit was a lot of fun! And as always, I am very proud of my students for their hard work. They deserve so much credit!

Each year the K12OnlineConference provides tremendous professional development for free, and entirely online. This year, they have selected me as one of their keynote speakers. I am thrilled to have been chosen and look forward to participating in the conversation.

Read the full post announcing all the keynote speakers here.

Here’s to great learning opportunities!

Recently, Palmetto Learning joined the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce. By joining, they created a radio spot for us and have begun running it on local radio stations. We thought that was a good bit of fun, so we decided to post the audio here for you to hear. Enjoy, and let us know what you think.

palmetto learning radio spot – mp3 file (489kb)

Palmetto Learning, LLC has recently been recognized by Google as a Google Certified Organization. That means that we are even more capable of helping your business, school, or nonprofit deploy Google Apps for Email, Documents, and more. We are now the only Google Certified Organization in South Carolina!

Dr. Chris Craft has been a Google Apps Certified Trainer for more than a year but now the whole business has been certified by Google!

Here are the links to verify…

Palmetto Learning, LLC Google Apps Certified Organization

Dr. Chris Craft as Google Apps Certified Trainer

We love working with institutions looking to “Go Google” so please let us know if we can help you with planning, deployment, migration, training, or any other Google topic.

cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo by Kachina Daze:
http://flickr.com/photos/katchinadaze/4649388687/

While I was in Florida about a month ago talking with educators from Newpoint schools, the topic of email came up. It turns out that the educators with whom I was working had a rather strong dislike of their existing email system. They complained of it not functioning properly, and that it felt antiquated. I was already working on showing them some Google features, so I quickly re framed the conversation around Google Apps for Education. They were hooked!

I talked with the director and they decided right then and there to Go Google! So for the last few weeks I’ve been busily migrating their users over to Google Apps for Education. I will be training them via webinar this week but so far they seem quite pleased with the uptime and ease of use.

Does your organization need to Go Google? Contact me for help with the process!