June 2005 — Features

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Logging on to Staff Development

By Gloria Bush, Mobile County Public School System

Although technology resource teachers do not visit the homes of classroom teachers, they work together on their online lessons using the telephone and e-mail. If course takers have problems with their home computers, technology personnel make sure that they have a working computer at school, and sometimes they borrow a laptop to take home if they have a hardware issue.

In addition to keeping the technology working, the live interaction between the classroom teachers and the technology resource personnel follows a best-practice model called the “blended approach” because it combines online learning with an interpersonal component. The coaching and feedback that course takers receive from technology resource teachers keeps them involved and successfully using the skills they are taught. Of course,it is not always practical for technology staff to take online classes simultaneously with classroom teachers. Therefore, the Teacher Education Institute now provides the Mobile County central office with frequent reports so that we can contact straggling participants and overcome problems quickly.

Conclusion

Teacher participation in any voluntary professional development program usually results in a small core of faculty becoming committed to any one method of professional development (Steven Marx, “Improving Faculty Use of Technology in a Small Campus Community,”T.H.E. Journal, 2005, www.thejournal.com/magazine/vault/A5169.cfm). This has been borne out with participation in our online courses (about 104 teachers have completed the course as of this writing). Yet, many of those participants have requested more online courses, and we’ve offered several other TEI courses with successful results.

Since teachers, like students, have different learning needs, we have not focused all our resources on online courses. However, despite being convenient in terms of time and accessibility, online courses are not for everyone. While some teachers can learn effectively via solitary study, others need more face-to-face interaction to better absorb information.

Because the delivery approach is critical in meeting the needs of teachers with widely varying levels of interest and expertise in technology (Priscilla Pardini, “Inside the Wired District,” Journal of Staff Development, 2002, www.nsdc.org/library/publications/jsd/pardini231.cfm), we’ve focused on meeting those individual learning styles through a variety of other professional development programs. These programs include specialized technology professional development for teachers, principals, and central office supervisors in summer camps, workshops, and on-site consultations at the schools. We include hardware or software incentives for many of these staff development opportunities as well. In addition, Instructional Technology and MCS work with schools on a daily basis to integrate technology in the classrooms.

The district plans to continue offering the online course because participants have reported it as an excellent introduction to technology integration as well as online learning. In our district, teachers completing Teachers Discovering Computers as a foundation course may be offered more advanced online professional development courses such as the institute’s Teachers Discovering & Integrating Microsoft Office and Teaching With WebQuests.