In my school setting,
there are several types of professional developments that pertain to improving
academic excellence. The professional development occurs during the school term
where days have been set aside for professional learning. Usually the learning
is led by the academic coaches. Unfortunately, there is no professional
development set aside for technology training. The media specialist says there is
some technology available that is not being used because of the lack of
training. Some training has been done with peer teachers who have knowledge of
different technology. Most of the technology implementation is done by the Central
Office technology staff which rarely visits the school for implementation. Technology
development would be a great asset for the staff, since over half are
millennia’s teachers who would enjoy technology assisted instruction.
We as present or
future media specialists must convince the principal or district of how
important implementation of technology is in achieving the ISTE standards to
help improve academic excellence for 21st century learners. We must
assume the role as coaches. We must learn how to use the technology efficiently
and transform the learning to our colleagues.
By becoming a
professional and coach in this field, I would have the vision on how to lead
the faculty in becoming technology literate to support student learning. This
can be done by learning about the different topics of technology in education by
attending professional development programs. Additionally, I would research and
gather data about the digital age learner’s expectations and different tools
for implementation that are available for learning, become aware of the safety
issues and how to be pro active to obtain safety when in use, share this
experience by teaching, demonstrating, collaborating, implementing, and
coaching teachers to adopt and use in the classroom. I would have a program
available so that teachers can express their technology needs for student
learning and find information to meet them, develop an evaluation tool to see
how the implementations are working in the classroom setting and make
adjustments as needed to improve. My main focus is to encourage principal and
district to set aside days for ISTE standards professional learning for
teachers. I would be an advocate in the school and community on how technology
can lead to better preparing 21st century learners in job
performance. Lastly, I would always be open to ideas to help move the staff and
students to the next level of success in using technology for educational
purposes.
References:
ISTE/Coaching White
Paper. (2011, January 1). Retrieved February 24, 2015, from https://www.iste.org/resources/product?ID=2157
ISTE Standards
Coaches. (n.d.). Retrieved February 24, 2015, from http://www.iste.org/docs/pdfs/20-14_ISTE_Standards-C_PDF.pdf
You’re correct in your thinking that everyone needs to be involved when it comes to implementing and activating technology in our schools. As a future Media Specialist I see that it will become more of a job for me to advocate on that behave as you have mentioned. However, there are other groups of individuals who can help out as well. In our district we have positions called Technology Specialists. They are tasked with helping the teachers and staff use more technology every opportunity they get. Each TS is assigned a school every day and teachers are required to sign-up for their services as the Technology department mandates. Principals are also very appreciative of their efforts as well because it helps their staff learn and use technology with the children. I have personally heard many of them say that the students are more tech savvy than their teachers. As a district we can’t have this kind of mismatch, as we need everyone to be equally experienced so that learning grows and doesn't become stagnant.
ReplyDeleteAs a LMS it is very important to know how to teach technology not only to students but definitely to the staff. While our district has technology teachers that do come to our school and teach we also have lessons on Blackboard that staff can go through. However, I have found that they really do not take advantage of the of online lessons. Even as the front office clerk I am teaching the staff how to use some of our technology, from how to use calendars in Outlook to how to use our Substitute teacher program. I have also learned that no matter how many PowerPoints I create so that they can learn on their own, they just don't. I end up teaching one at a time, and some have even told me they didn't look at the lesson I sent them.
ReplyDeleteI strongly believe that technology lessons should be taught in person, to a group while they are actually using the technology itself. This way if they have questions you can answer them and they can get help from each other. This could be done through lunch-n-learns or even during pre-planning sessions. Our district has reduced the number of teacher work days so it is hard to fit them in during the school year. When I become a LMS I will make it a point to add monthly technology trainings to try and keep our staff in the know.
I couldn't agree more with this statement that Rodney made below! I hope to one day be a media-technology specialist! The question is: what is the best vehicle for convincing the administration?
ReplyDelete“We as present or future media specialists must convince the principal or district of how important implementation of technology is in achieving the ISTE standards to help improve academic excellence for 21st century learners. We must assume the role as coaches. We must learn how to use the technology efficiently and transform the learning to our colleagues.”
I had the opportunity to volunteer at the Jefferson City schools district recently. The SLMS is an active role that supports all laptops, including laptop carts, eReaders, audio books and nooks. Most of the support is done in an ad-hoc availability, and not entered in their ticketing system, I did offer my opinion on this and how tracking work efforts is just a best practice, especially with all the budget cuts in Media Centers lately.
For their video distribution, they utilize this tool for their morning news production. As far as technology training, their biggest Media Center related training needs are working with research, online generators, and time management strategies. For teacher related, Professional Development the biggest need is reading incentives, (there is rarely time for the technology role, or time to present on new technologies). The media specialist shared that teachers would benefit from learning on what opportunities she could provide them on the topics of: research, Galileo, and encyclopedia Britannica. She also stated the students learning experiences could be enhanced if the media center staff could provide training on the following topics: Google docs and destiny.
At the time of my visit, they were experiencing some hiccups due to gearing up for the upcoming GA milestones testing and that they are piloting giving the tests fully ONLINE this year, while there are only enough laptops for one grade level use at one time!
Rodney you make a very powerful statement and I fully agree with your reasoning. we do need to push administrator's and the higher powers to provide this service to our teachers, otherwise are our students really learning all they can through these methods? I think not, as half the teachers don't know how to use the technology and the other half desire to but aren't sure how to go about doing it. We are the facilitators in this instance as we have a unique perspective on the entire situation, most of us having been in a classroom at one point in our career and moving to the path of media specialist with all it's requirements. We should make the voices of the teachers heard and get the training they require for the betterment of our students. Thanks for the great read! -MC
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your thoughtful post. I am fortunate to work at a school where our administration places significant value on technology professional development. THe work days you refer to in your post, at my school, included this year a couple hours worth each day of technology training for staff members not involved in other committee meetings. This included about 1/2 of our staff. Our SLMS, our Technology Coordinator and a couple lead teachers were charged with developing year long technology curriculum to present on these days. I was asked to present as a classroom teacher to others in a couple of these days, and although nervous- was thrilled to have the opportunity and gain the experience.
ReplyDeleteI believe one of the reasons it is so important to work towards getting your administrations approval and backing in technology for PD is educated teachers educate students. It is hard to develop "tech savvy" students when their teachers are not "tech savvy". College bound students today are required to have a thorough understanding of basic and advanced technology principles, even to take the most basic of freshman level courses. They may be required to blog (as we are), respond to discussion posts providing research notes, prepare a presentation using a web 2.0 tool to deliver to their professors and classmates for review. They will surely be required to manage data and have access to their digital material in class, at the dorm and the campus library. All these items can not be taught in their pre-college education in a "technology" course.If we are introducing these concepts in elementary and requiring students to produce evidence of understanding by middle school, these students will be technologically prepared to enter college.
In order to graduate these students prepared for college, they must be exposed to technology through modeling its use in the classroom. For that to occur, there must be professional development to educators in the classroom. This PD will only occur in earnest when the administration is on board and is clear in its commitment to providing the support needed to the educators that work for them.
I have to agree with you that we need to take this problem of non-existent professional development tech training to the people who are higher up than us. This type of issue should be addressed a lot more than it has been in such ways as the different conferences that are happening throughout the year or implementing more TED Talks into schools. Our student’s futures are riding on our ability to give them the technological tools that are out there. They are our future leaders and they need the tools to reach their fullest potential.
ReplyDeleteIt is sad to think of all the technology out there that is not being utilized by school systems. I know budgets are a main cause in implementing and teaching staff about technology but what kind of world will our students enter if they haven't been introduced to these new technologies that are taking over our world. You are so right in the fact that a Media Specialist needs to be heard throughout the school and district and needs to advocate for more trainings for teachers and staff. Whether we are ready for it or not - technology IS the future and our students will have jobs and deal with things that don't even exist today. We have to prepare them as much as possible and we can't do that without being up-to-date ourselves. Great Post!!
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