Contact: Deborah P. Lamp 1. To identify and prioritize staff development needs of educators - Staff development in Wood County is scheduled and dictated by the elected staff development council. As the supervisor of our school librarians, who utilize an automated circulation/online catalog system, I have continually requested training time with them in order to attain skill levels needed to assist the other instructional staff in the use of technology. The council refuses to allow "break-out" groups time for such training. (If they do it for one group, they have to do it for others...) They also make no allowances for technology integration. We have focused our efforts on our investment in a prioritized curriculum and the sessions are about graphic organizers, scaffolding and previewing, and collaboration (which should certainly include librarians contributing their expertise in using electronic resources to accomplish these goals.) There is NO mention of the word technology in our staff development sessions. The restrictions of the school calendar are increasingly prohibiting training time. Our teachers have received tech integration instruction in 3 ways: (1) through Basic Skills mandated training when we purchase software with Basic Skills money, (2) through SUCCESS training mandated for the same reason, (3) and the most successful way, through the highly successful efforts of two technology integration specialists we have had for two years because of our EETT grant.
2. To address the need of staffing schools with Technology Information Specialists (TIS)s who provide daily and timely support of educators using technology in the classroom - We have been experiencing exactly this with our two specialists. They have made a real impact at Martin, Franklin, Blennerhassett Elementary, Jefferson, Madison, and Fairplains. This year they will be teaching and providing resources for four more schools. They model lessons and provide hands-on support for teachers who were only using computers because we require that students participate in the Basic Skills program. I can't say enough about the impact this grant has made on the staffs at these schools. Teachers who were stubbornly against "new ways" of doing things are now requesting suggestions and help from the specialists. It has been incredible.
3. To identify what staff development programs are currently available and which programs address relevancy to best practices in technology integration - Ones that are available are expensive. We are constantly being contacted by vendors who would like to train educators on their products. We could use people within our own ranks do some of this. We have highly qualified staff members in our own schools who could provide relevant technology integration. We could form a county technology team which would consist of individuals with different areas of expertise. THE BIGGEST OBSTACLE TO ALL OF THIS IS TIME TO DO IT.
4. To identify solutions to better prepare educators with the integration of technology into the curriculum (i.e. allocation of time, providing substitutes, monitoring and accountability) - I recently requested a half-day session with 25 librarians. It requires a substitute for each. The plan is to have 2 sessions and the sub will go to two schools. I will be doing the training so there is no expense for a trainer. The substitutes are an expense. Assuming the training is valuable and the librarians return to do a better job with students and staff, who monitors this and makes them accountable? Teacher evaluations are now supposed to include use of technology. Principals are not held accountable for their knowledge of the use of technology. This is a topic that is crucial to the actual integration process. Teachers will do what a leader requires. We need principals who have embraced the need to teach students who are learning in the 21st century.
5. To identify minimum technology integration staff development requirements needed for higher education teacher programs as well as substitutes working in our schools - My experience, in regards to technology, with people just out of teacher education programs has been positive. It's their dedication to the job that I'm looking for.
6. To identify a cadre of technology savvy educators in each RESA who can become the catalysts of true, meaningful and relevant technology integration - Educators is the keyword here.
7. In formulating your feedback, please consider the following: - What are the risks or barriers before these goals?
- Lack of time during staff development where teachers actually see and learn teaching strategies incorporating technology. In our county, RESA is a big barrier in accomplishing this goal. At the risk of opening a huge can of worms, teachers don't use technology because it doesn't always work and those who are supposed to fix it are not reliable. We have some technicians who go to schools to work on a problem, don't fix it, and never return. We also have some that go when things are working fine and leave after they have disabled half of the building. A third barrier to all we do now is the bandwidth issue. In order to move forward to products that are web-based and easily managed, we need to increase the speed of access. Another barrier that I've seen when we try to get educators to do things differently is the fact that they see it as something in addition to what they already do and we are infringing on their rights. The end result of this thinking is that unions and professional organizations step in to ask why we want these things done.
- How do we measure success? We've started centering everything we do on improving test scores. NCLB makes us accountable to certain standards. We take surveys before and after projects. They are no measure of success. The biggest measure of whether we are integrating technology is someone on a school campus who is responsible for monitoring and documenting teaching strategies to see what is being done and how students respond to them.
- What current professional development programs do your schools use? Only those purchased from the state contract and associated with software purchased with state money have been used here.
- Which programs are successful and which are not working?
- Are there any quick hits/solutions to better assist teachers in technology integration? How quick would a bandwidth fix be? Right now, it is the easiest thing to do without involving training.
- What do you see as the keys to successful Professional Development? The time I see educators most excited is when they can see that what we are telling them directly applies to what they do. Elementary people tend to be very creative and I've watched them get excited when they understand that what they are seeing can improve what they have been doing. Secondary people tend to be less enthusiastic and more skeptical. I don't know what a key to successful PD for them would be.
- Can you suggest any quick hits as solutions to the problem of getting more educators to integrate technology? Bandwidth is still the quickest thing right now.
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