Innovative Professional Development in Technology
Professional development in technology has been undergoing some significant changes lately. The days of teachers attending workshops, learning PowerPoint and a dozen other applications, and then returning to their schools to try to figure out how to use what they learned– those days may be numbered.
Case in point: Kristin Hokanson is a "Technology Integration Coach" as part of a Classrooms for the Futures grant in Upper Merion Area High School, King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. Hokanson's goal is simply to help teachers use technology more effectively. Indeed, she does facilitate some training, but more often she's meeting with individual teachers before and after school; sometimes she's helping them in the classroom. "I'm not a curriculum expert," says Hokanson. "The teachers are. But I'm a technology expert. And I'm available all the time." That's the first significant change in professional development in technology–it now happens during actual teaching time, when, not surprisingly, it's needed the most.
Hokanson also points out that she helps teachers on specific, curriculum-related issues. "You can't do that in a summer workshop," she says, "and not use it until you get back to school." And that leads to the second significant change in professional development in technology– its relationship to curriculum. When a teacher comes to Hokanson and says, "I want to know how to run a blog," Hokanson asks, "What's the objective?" Only then does she counsel the teacher on multimedia podcasts, wikis, blogs, voice threads, and any other technology that engages students in meeting their academic objectives. What that means is that she's helping teachers and librarians not with "spray and pray" approaches in which they learn a panoply of software applications, but rather with what teachers and librarians need to support their curricula.
Hokanson is diligent about tying technology to curriculum, and the teachers have been receptive to her approach. Why? "They realize how much more engaged their students become when they introduce technology. . . . They see the interest level rise; that's what driving the teachers."
Cathy Groller couldn't agree more. She's the assistant to the executive director at Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit #21, a Pennsylvania state educational service agency. A former high school English teacher, Groller currently provides professional development to teachers in 14 school districts, and she emphasizes applied learning: "Our technology program is part of curriculum and instruction because we believe that technology should be seamlessly integrated into instruction." Like Hokanson, she thinks it's important that teachers have a framework into which they can incorporate what they learn about technology–technology as a means, not an end. In fact, Groller says that "the word 'technology' needs to disappear." She wants technology to become as commonplace as the telephone, so that people use it without even thinking about how "special" it is.
A perfect illustration of in-class, curriculum-specific professional development in technology may be Generation YES (GenYES). GenYes began as a federal Technology Innovation Challenge Grant in the Olympia, Washington, school district, in 1996, but it has since spread to hundreds of schools around the country.
GenYes works like this: Students attend a class in which they not only learn about technology but also create a project that they use with a partner-teacher. Each student has a partner-teacher, who receives both curriculum materials and personal tech support–the student. The class addresses on-line research, on-line communications, digital media, digital authoring, web publishing, and even student leadership and community service. But it's the student becoming the source of the professional development that makes GenYes different–and effective. Teachers wanting a technological solution to enhance their curricula need look no farther than their students.
"Students are 92% of the population at any school site," says GenYES president Sylvia Martinez. "We're trying for a trickle-down effect." She–and the Gen-Yes website–point to some powerful advantages to the program, including school-wide infusion of technology, cost-effective professional development support, and a research-based, flexible curriculum that's aligned to state and national standards for students in grades 4-12.
Professional development in technology is clearly evolving. Whether it's coaches like Kristin Hokanson who make themselves continually accessible, administrators like Cathy Groller who refuse to "teach" technology without a curricular framework, or programs like GenerationYES that involve students as an integral part of that professional development, things are changing. And implementing these changes will be necessary to usher in a technologically-literate society.
As Kristin Hokanson says, "You can't institute change without supporting the change."
Links
- website for Kristin Hokanson, www.theconnectedclassroom.org
- Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit #21, www.cliu.org
- Generation YES, www.genyes.com
