Best Practices in Tech PD

I WANT MORE PD!

Ask almost any teacher and they will tell you they want more technology professional development.  That request means something different to each teacher:

• exposure to new technology tools
• step-by-step guidance to new tools
• help creating lessons that utilize technology
• a day to be out of the classroom checking their FaceBook page and complaining

There are workshops and blogs and books about Web 2.0 tools, but I believe they overwhelm most teachers because they try to do an information dump.  They don’t help teachers change their mindset to someone willing to take risks with technology or help with where to start, and it just becomes an avalanche.

I’ve been reading instructional design blogs recently and most emphasize that the true goal of e-learning is not information but action.  A rapid demonstration of a bunch of snazzy tools rarely leads to teachers actually changing their use of technology in the classroom.

I think we’re missing the underlying message though when we hear requests for more PD.  We assume teachers want “how-to” technology professional development.  What they are really trying to say is “I am not comfortable using technology and I want help becoming more comfortable.”  What a technology coach needs to do is help teachers learn how to learn technology.

You can learn any technology if you know/do the following basic steps:

1. Sign up with a separate “junk” email account, which you’ll use only for trying out new online tools.  If you like the tool, you can change the email to one you regularly use, but you won’t clutter up your mailbox with garbage from those tools you try and discard.
2. Immediately SAVE your work after you start.  For most programs, this means that the software will now start automatically saving your work at regular intervals.  If you don’t do this you run the risk of losing all your work if the program crashes, not just the last minute of work since the last automatic save.
3. If you are using desktop software, when you make significant changes, save a second copy, so that you have a backup file if you “destroy” your work in some way (or lose a flash drive).  If you do that, it’s easier to feel like it’s OK to experiment.
4. Find the next most important menu item/toolbar button after save — undo.   You’re a smart person and you can figure it out.  Just start clicking on each of the buttons on the toolbar and see what happens.  If you don’t like what the result is, hit undo.
5. Finally, make sure you find the help menu/toolbar button.  If you have something specific you want to accomplish, check the help menu.  For many online tools especially, this is often created by users just like you, and sometimes is even in the form of videos so you can watch and learn.