Technology Counts - March 14, 2013 - 17

mentors to classroom teachers.
“[The resource teachers] meet
the teacher where he or she is at,
so they do a little of everything,”
Weller says. “If a teacher is still a
novice with technology, the teacher
might search for technology integration lesson plans for student activities at sites like Thinkfinity, or PBS,
or iTunes U or the new eMediaVA
that give the teacher a good outline
of what to do. If the school division
has decided to adopt iPads or tablets, the [resource teacher] does the
whole spectrum of training—how to
physically use the devices, how to
use software and do minor troubleshooting, how to find resources for
the devices that they can use in
their own classrooms, how to use the
resources to teach in an integrated
way, how to get data out of the devices into a usable format and then
what that data can tell them about
each student’s progress.”
They also co-teach lessons with
classroom teachers. The advantages of such peer-to-peer professional development are numerous,
Weller points out.
“It’s targeted to what the teacher
is doing, so that it’s not this impersonal, theoretical thing,” she says.
“It’s very much focused on what
the teacher is doing at that moment, what their needs are, and
what they are interested in trying.
“Also, having that person-to-person contact makes things so much
better,” says Weller. “They have a
real person to talk to, and someone
they feel comfortable with.”
That more personal approach is
evolving in other ways, too.
In the 18,000-student Parkway
school system in Chesterfield,
Mo., for example, each school has
a technology committee, composed
of the principal and teachers at
that school, says William Bass, an
instructional coach in the district.
Those committees work with teachers at the schools to identify issues
they want to address in their classrooms with technology.
If the teachers need more help,
they can call in an instructional
technology specialist from the district for more support.
“We are trying to take a grassroots approach,” Bass says. “The
teachers are the ones who drive it,
and then there’s support during
that planning process or wherever
they need help along the way.”

and other activities and projects.
“Teachers can find other likeminded instructors in their cohort
and work together on developing a
lesson, work on something else they
want to create for their course, or
work on developing a blended unit
[of face-to-face and online learning],” Michalowski says.
In many online professional-development courses, teachers are required to use various technological
tools, such as wikis, Google Earth,
or VoiceThread, a collaborative,
multimedia slide show that allows
people to make comments about
images, documents and videos.
After using digital tools in their
own professional development,
Michalowski says, they can then
use them more effectively and cre-

atively with their students.
“They themselves are being engaged in learning with technology,”
adds Barbara Treacy, the director of
EdTech Leaders Online, a program
of the Education Development Center, a global nonprofit organization
based in Waltham, Mass.
“This is good because they actually get what’s going on with the
learning environment, and how
it is enhanced with technology,”
she says. “Using it in their own
learning is a great way to help
students use it.”
Meanwhile, to emphasize costeffective professional development,
some districts are using Skype,
podcasts, and webinars to deliver
professional development that
teachers can access at their conve-

nience from their own computers.
For instance, the Keller Independent School District in Texas, which
serves 33,130 students, sometimes
records educational technology presentations using SAFARI Montage,
a program that allows districts to
upload their own digital videos for
viewing, and then gives them access to educational videos produced
by other groups, such as pbs.
“Instead of 500 teachers coming
to a professional-development [session], they can get on the Internet
and watch something, which is also
recorded and made available for
later use,” says Michelle HowardSchwind, the director of organizational improvement for the district.
“We are trying to develop just-intime learning without getting them

out of the classroom.”
Nationally, much professional development for teachers around educational technology is self-directed.
Teachers have to build their own
connections with other educators,
think about what they want to improve in their own classroom, and
research and experiment with different technology tools.
The key is to start small, says
Knee, the New Hampshire kindergarten teacher.
“Teachers should find one thing
that they would like to change or
something they want to make better and look for ways to use a technology tool,” she says. And “teachers
need to get outside of their school
and see what is happening in other
places. And be open to learning.” n

ONLINE PD LESSONS
One fast-evolving trend in professional development is the use of
virtual classes or sessions.
A major advantage of online
learning is that teachers can connect with educators locally or
worldwide through their online
coursework, says Amy Michalowski, the director of academic
affairs for the Virtual High School
Collaborative in Maynard, Mass.
The collaborative offers a fivecourse series of classes about
using technology in the classroom.
The program focuses on teachers’
working together with a community of learners, rather than sitting
behind computers by themselves,
not interacting with anyone, Michalowski explains.
The collaboration happens
through class discussions, blogging,
TECHNOLOGY COUNTS 2013

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Technology Counts - March 14, 2013

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