Week 4 Assignment, Part 2: Professional Development Planning

While the interviews from the Week 3 Assignment reflected mostly positive assessments of the state of technology integration at the campus, the STaR Chart indicated that campus personnel were least proficient in this area--the latest survey (School year 2008-2009) showing its lowest response (2) in the area of "Professional Development for Online Learning". The recent acquisition of Smart Boards for each classroom has resulted in a high learning curve for many teachers. While some dove right in and began experimenting, others are only now (fully eight months since installation) starting to show interest in utilizing the technology for instruction. Some formal small group training has already occurred as well as informal sharing among teachers in their Professional Learning Communities and in faculty meetings. However, optimal use of the technology in all classrooms has yet to be realized. There fore, the following suggested professional development activities are recommended.

• User Groups will be formed devoted mainly to training and sharing on use of the Smart Board led by teachers who have achieved a comfort level with the technology. This is truly "close to the campus" professional development as mentioned by Dr. Abernathy (Jenkins, Abernathy, Cummings, 2009) and makes optimal use of available personnel with no additional cost to the campus.
• A "This and That" binder has been developed for each teacher which contains information and FAQ's on the technology (hardware and software_ available to them. This customizable collection of documents is designed to be a working tool that teachers can modify to meet their own technology learning needs. Regular updates and additions to this binder will be supplied to each teacher.
• Professional Learning Communities (PLC's) will include technology discussions as a topic item in weekly meetings covering both sharing on technology use and review of "new" technology that might benefit instruction and learning. Resulting recommendations may then be made to the Site Based Decision Making Committee.
• Teachers will be encouraged to participate in online training in all technology areas. Training is offered through the school district's Technology and Information Systems department as well as at hardware support sites such as the Smart Board web site
• One-on-one individual support and training will continue to be offered by the Campus Curriculum Integration Technologist (CCIT)