From MOOCs to MOOPILs: Pushing the Boundaries of Virtual Professional Development and Learning for Teachers

This article includes a discussion of the growing use of virtual professional development and learning for educators. Next the authors describe virtual professional development and learning within the context of a U.S. federally-funded Investing in Innovation (i3) grant, English Language and Literacy Acquisition-Validation (ELLA-V), and the need for a new understanding of such on an informal and individual basis. The proposed concept is a Massive Open Online Professional Informal Individual Learning (MOOPIL). Lastly, the authors provide an example of a MOOPIL from the ELLA-V grant which is called ELLA-Virsity—a collection of short professional development webinars for teachers and school leaders who work with English language learners.