Recognizing that teachers are flexible professionals who specialize in using technology to support teaching and learning require on-going opportunities for professional learning is essential for school and technology leaders. This professional learning will be characterized by a mix of self-selected and self-defined learning (based on one’s expertise and understanding of current need) and new ideas, which extends and expands teachers’ understanding of their work. Several models for professional development are appropriate. An effective professional learning program will include each.
Furr, Ragsdale, and Horton (2005) suggested that teacher evaluation in the increasingly complex world should be formative and naturalistic. They claim many teacher evaluation programs focus on the outcomes of technology-rich teaching and learning and thus avoid the complexities of authentic learning that reflects the dominant culture and ignore essential aspects of human learning, society, and the role of information technology in that milieu. In arguing leaders evaluate teachers in a naturalistic manner for formative purposes, they suggested it will account for factors related to the unique experiences of the populations in the classroom and that it will be designed to improve the curriculum and instruction for those populations. They argue for professional development that prepares educators for this setting will prepare them to “assess the expected and unexpected consequences [of technology] and then to adjust their teaching to employ technology as a positive, cognitive tool” (285). Professional development to meet this vision will be organized in several ways.
Awareness Presentations
Because information technology (hardware and software as well as network resources) changes so quickly and new tools are developed and refined so quickly, it is likely that options exist that even connected educators are not aware exist. The purpose of an awareness presentation is simply to introduce a technology or strategy to an educator (or group of educators). After an awareness presentation, those educators who are interested in the topic will have access to resources for further exploring the topic. Awareness presentations are characteristically:
- very brief (10 minutes or so)- A “show-and-tell” session included in the agenda of a faculty meeting is common, as is a round robin with several awareness presentations set up in one place and groups rotating through the individual presentations.
- allow for reflection- Because the new tools introduced in awareness presentations may be perceived as unnatural to some teachers, the chance to hear others’ perceptions is a chance to connect with the new ideas and tools. Of course, the opposite may occur as well, and reflection may be the chance for educators to criticize new ideas or tools. Focusing discussion in awareness presentations around questions of effort expectancy (e.g. What will be easier if we use this?) or performance expectancy (“What will this help us do better?”) tend to prevent negative reactions in awareness presentation reflection.
- include options for further exploration- By design, an awareness presentation gives the audience minimal (even no) experience actually using the tool. Because of that, there must be a way for interested audience members can learn more about the tools after the presentation ends.
Tutorials
Tutors are individuals who provide instruction to learners, and this type of support is helpful to those learning to use new technologies. Many are familiar with math tutors who review with students how to do certain problems and who observe and troubleshoot the student’s work. Tutorials for technology tools are similar. Whereas traditional tutors meet in-person (and they can be effective to teach how to use technology tools), many technology tutorials are given via recorded presentation and the audience has control over when it is viewed and how often it is viewed. Tutorials are generally:
- intended for individual or small-group support– Presenting a tutorial to a large group is seldom effective as the tutor goes too fast for some while others are far ahead of the group.
- Best when provided just in time as the learner needs the information. This is one of the advantages of using information technology to deliver tutorials. Users are relieved of the responsibility of remembering (or otherwise expending cognition) and the users tend to be motivated so they pay greater attention and retain more of the information.
- Best for step-by-step tasks in which the steps are either correctly performed or incorrectly performed.
Tutorials are in many ways like the on-demand learning that is known to improve the performance expectancy associated with technology acceptance. The same principles regarding multimedia design that improve the effectiveness of those materials for students can be applied to supporting educators’ learning as well.
Institutes
Institutes bring a group of educators together for an extended time (typically measured in days) so they can participate in an intensive and immersive experience. For several days, educators dedicate extended time to (with guidance) conceptualize, draft, refine, and prepare classroom materials. This is very useful when first adopting an instructional model, and time is needed to prepare a foundation of materials to support initial efforts in the classroom. When initially adopting virtual classrooms or when creating the initial curriculum repository, school and technology leaders who organize an institute are likely to positively affect all of the factors associated with technology acceptance.
Institutes combine several features:
- consideration of theory– Especially in those institutes that include graduate credit for participants, the curriculum of the institute includes reading and experiences that help the participants understand why they are learning new models.
- expectation of product– Participants should leave institutes with resources that will help them as they return to the classroom. Lesson plans, curriculum materials, and handbooks are all examples of the type of products they take with them when the institute ends.
- a cadre of leaders, ideally comprising those dedicated to the theory and experienced in the classroom to guide participants as they explore the theory and prepare for the practice of the model.
- on-going support to help participants assess the work and reflect on necessary changes after they return to the classroom.
Support at a Distance
Several technology tools can be leveraged to extended and expanded the potential learning communities for educators. Educators can collaborate with the same virtual classrooms for their own professional learning that are used for their students. Many observe that this is perhaps more important than in-person professional development, as teachers who are interacting at a distance for their own professional learning are experiencing the potential and the difficulties of using virtual classrooms as a learner.
School and technology leaders have a range of technology tools to support synchronous professional learning. Of course, these tools are not unique for professional development for educators; they have applications in teaching and learning with students, and are widely used for training purposes by software and hardware vendors and other organizations working in educational technology fields.
- Chat– A chat room is a web page that contains two text boxes, one seen by the individual user and another shared by every user who is logged on to the chat room at a particular moment. When one enters text in the box on his or her screen then clicks the “send” button, the message is instantly displayed so everyone in the chat room can see it. Chat is built into most LMS, and chat is frequently used to interact with technical support providers. When designing curriculum, chat is often useful for brainstorming as participants can contribute with little attention to editing. The transcript can then be reviewed for ideas worth developing.
- Screen sharing– As the title suggests, screen sharing is a technology that allows one to share their screen with others. Typically, the presenter will initiate the sharing and send a link to the audience so that they can point their web browser to a web address that displays the presenter’s screen. This allows the presenter to demonstrate software or web site, or for a dispersed audience to focus attention on a single display. This can be combined with chat or audio over the Internet or the telephone for even more interaction. Screen sharing is often used to demonstrate new information platforms.
- Video conferencing in which participants see and hear each other. Some platforms also allow for screen sharing and some allow for different users to take control of the mouse and keyboard of the presentation computer remotely. The best way to connect to a video conference is to be sure your computer (or mobile device) is connected to a wifi network (the systems do not work well over cellular connections).
- Social media- Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter (among other platforms) are all spaces where groups of educators have formed extended communities of practice. Participants share resources and ideas and provide on-going commentary on trends, tools, and events.
All of these tools have build incorporated into webinars, which are widely used in business. K-12 education has been relatively slow to adopt webinars as the technology for providing high-resolution images of screens, high-quality audio, and chat functions to groups the size demanded by educational purposes tends to be very expensive. In addition, the systems tend to be difficult to use because of the many functions available in the interface.