PD Sessions on home page updated for June 2026
During the summer months my plan is to only do one update per month of available (and mostly virtual) professional development sessions. A big reason for that is practicality - there just aren't very many regularly available each month, and many of the ones available either have enrollment restrictions or sign-up costs. As much as possible I am going to continue emphasizing free PD, but in limited cases (as I describe more in the post) I will make information available about longer PD conferences that charge for admission (hoping individuals can decide if the experience is worth the expense). I'm also including a little bit of general information about my plans for the summer months.
Jay LeBlanc
5/29/20262 min read
As I mentioned above, I'm planning during the months of June, July and probably August to update the PD sessions only once a month right at the beginning. Primarily that is driven by the number of sessions available (and how many are in-person vs virtual). I "may" still add a new session if I find out about something later, but most sessions during the summer require registration in advance (so I doubt there will be very many last-minute changes - more likely I just will find out about something being offered later than normal during the summer.
Another small difference I mentioned above as well is that I will occasionally vary from my norm and mention opportunities that cost money to register. Part of the reason for that is the lack of offerings, but it also helps that some organizations offer longer conferences (with more days and more hours of professional development available) during the summer. So as an example, the National Council for the Social Studies offers a 2-day virtual conference later this month with a cost of $99 for members (and $199 for non-members with a 1-yr membership included). When you consider that the in-person NCSS conference registration is around $440 to $460 for 3 days in Chicago (PLUS hotel/food/car), the $99 cost for a variety of virtual social studies sessions might not seem like a bad investment! P.S. - I plan to do both - I'll attend the virtual conference and then will be presenting at the December conference.
Finally, a bit of general information about my plans for the summer for this website. I do plan to continue updates into the summer - in fact, my hope is to start a couple of new series and use the summer posts to make any "tweaks" necessary on the format for those. You might have seen my mention of the new Famous American Court Cases series last week - hoping to have the first post up later this week. At the same time, I have a lot of other obligations during the summer (no more prepping for a new school year, but a lot of PD requests and training opportunities come up this time of year. So my goal will be 3 posts per week, rather than the normal 4-5 I have been doing the first few months of 2026. I may also schedule some posts in advance of busy periods - for example, I'm scheduled to moderate sessions for the Council for Economic Education's Summer Institute late in July, so that will be a busy week! Anyway, we'll see how it goes . . .
Below I'm going to continue documenting the PD session updates I put on the home page - I will not duplicate registration links, but at least can record what was offered for "posterity". Here are the new listings (in chronological order) as of today:
Federal Reserve Education, "Exploring Money: The Power of a Penny", 6/9, 12-1pm CT
Library of Congress - Geography and Map Division, "Virtual Orientation: Mapping America’s 250th Anniversary with Graphics", 6/9, 2-3pm CT
Econiful, "2026 Summer Book Club - AI Economics", 6/10, 6-7pm AND 3 on-demand Nearpod modules about the book
NextGen Personal Finance (NGPF), "Behind the Curtain: What Students Should Know About the Investment Industry with Patrick Geddes", 6/16, 6-7pm CT
Intuit for Education, "2026 Virtual Educator Conference", 6/23, 11am-3pm CT
National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), "2026 NCSS Summer Virtual Conference: From Revolution to Resilience", 6/23 from 10am-3:45pm CT AND 6/24 from 10am-3:45pm CT
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