ViewSonic Expert

We're excited to announce our 2024 ViewSonic Expert Academy dates!

Summer 2024 Expert Academy - June 19th-21st in Brea, CA (Applications are currently closed)

Winter 2024 Expert Academy - December 10th-12th in Brea, CA (Applications open June 1st and close Nov 1st)

What is the ViewSonic Expert Academy?

CONGRATS TO OUR SUMMER '24 VIEWSONIC EXPERT COHORT!


Annina Williams - Wilson County Schools, TN

Jaimie Jordan - Westside Union School District, CA

Julie Green - Indian River Schools, FL

Kim Wilcox - Fort Osage School District, MO

Michele Agee - Wilson County Schools, TN

Rebecca Dillon - Fort Osage School District, MO

Note: You must complete both the Graduate and Educator Certifications to apply for the Expert Certification. Applicants who have not completed Graduate or Educator will not be considered. 

Section 1: Becoming a Expert

Congrats on making it this far! Becoming a myViewBoard Expert is more than just getting a badge, it's proving you have what it takes to support other educators with integrating myViewBoard into their instruction. As you already know, being a trainer is also about pushing our attendees to rethink the way students learn, teachers teach and how technology is connected to that. This course is more extensive than other courses and requires you to put more time into developing yourself as a trainer. Although many of us our teachers and know how to teach students, teaching other teachers can be a completely different experience.

For your first assignment, read the "Teaching How to Teach" article by Shane Safir, a former Principal and coach. Although being a ViewSonic Authorized Trainer doesn't mean you're coaching teachers daily, there are valuable lessons that can be learned when we look at ways some coaches have led others to success. 


Step 1: Watch the Video

Section 2: Building an Agenda

As educators many of our are familiar with lesson planning. It's a key practice to ensure we know the goals of a lesson, how we're going to approach content, key indicators of success and strategies to help students learn something new that they'll remember! That being said, prepping is easier said than done. What are the goals of a myViewBoard training? What should you share first vs last? How much time should you spend on each topic (or how much time are you limited to)? As a trainer you should be reflecting on each of these questions, and many more, before leading your session.

Agendas aren't just for you either, they're for the participants. Below is an article that explores some great tips for getting your participants involved in the making of the agenda. For example, we always like to ask what, "people hope to get out of the training." When we ask this we're looking for specific goals like, "How do I use myVIewBoard with Google Docs," or, "I just want to know how to turn it on." Explore how these items can fit into your agenda without detracting from the key goals. 

Remember an agenda is NOT a slide deck. Going through a PowerPoint is not a training, anyone can read slides. If you MUST make a slide deck (and we do all the time) use it as a resource, not your main teaching tool (we'll talk more about that later).

In this assignment here are your following tasks:

Step 1: Watch the Video

Step 3: Build your own Agenda

Step 2: Review the Sample Agenda

Sample myViewBoard Agenda

Section 3: Creating Resources

Leading a training is the easy part, it's what happens AFTER the training that will determine if your participants are successful when you're not around.

It's important to think about what happens when you're no longer around to answer questions. ViewSonic already has a lot of great resources for you to use, but these sometimes can be overwhelming and not targeted. For example, just sharing the link to our YouTube channel may not be the best option, but sharing links to a few specific videos might.

Better yet, why don't you make your own video! It doesn't take much to make a screen recording or a short in person video. Maybe you one a one pager that is easy for your participants to access or a slide deck of your best "pro tips." In this section we'll explore where all of ViewSonic's resources are as well as give you ideas for ways you can make your own resources.

Remember that resources have two main goals:

Step 1: Watch the Video

Section 4: Leading a Training (Presentation Skills)

Ever been in a bad professional development? What do you remember about it that you didn't like? We remember being in trainings where presenters would read each slide to us. Or maybe the presenter talked the entire time and never paused once. The point is, we want our trainings to be fun, engaging, hands on and most importantly meaningful!

Most of us are teachers and have classroom experience. We're used to using tips and tricks to engage our students, but many times we'll abandoned these when we're training adults. Here's a Pro Tip: adults and kids learn the same way! 

We'd love to know what you've experienced. Let us know what things you liked about certain trainings and/or what things you didn't like about a training. We're not trying to insult anyone here so keep it general and let's use this as a way to reflect on things we should keep doing in our trainings and things we should consider stopping.

Step 1: Watch the Video

Step 2: Participate in the myViewBoard™ Community

Section 5: Measuring Success

What does a successful training look like? Does everyone clap? Do they say things like, "Thanks I learned so much!"

We all enjoy hearing that we did a good job presenting but that doesn't always mean that our participants actually learned something. Think about when we teach students, what are some ways we measure their success? We might look at a worksheet they completed or a presentation they built. We might listen to their conversations in small groups or give them a final quiz. The great news is, we can use the same strategies with our adult learners. 

At ViewSonic we're always getting teachers hands on with their devices and they myViewBoard Whiteboard software. Below are some ways we check for learning during our sessions.

Always look for ways you can measure success of your trainings. This will allow you to know what went well, and what could be improved for next time.

Step 1: Watch the Video

Step 2: Review Digital Resources

Section 6: Creating a Culture of error

It's okay to make mistakes, in fact, it's one of the most effective teaching tools in our arsenal! One of our favorite things when we're leading a ViewSonic training is letting participants touch, click and go off down rabbit holes. For those Type A trainers out there you freak out that they're playing with the Magic Box even though you only showed them how to use the Pen Tool. For those who are more "go with the flow" you struggle to get everyone back on track when it's time to move forward.

In this session we'll address this idea of "moving along" your agenda while leveraging the opportunity to help your participants learn by making mistakes. We're sure we'll have some strong opinions on this one!

Section 7: myViewBoard Trainer Application

Alright, this is it! It's time for you to shine and show us what an amazing trainer you are! It's very important that you follow all of the requirements below.

Materials to submit

We recommend you gather everything before taking the Certification Test as you'll need to upload all materials during the test itself. Make sure you review everything that needs to be completed. Applications that are missing requirements will not be reviewed! Due to the volume of applications we won't be able to provide specific feedback to you directly.

Good luck and we're excited to receive your application!

Use the link below to submit your application by turning in the requested materials and passing the exam questions.