District Administration - January 2012 - (Page 60)

Equipping Teachers to Infuse TEchnology not meet face-to-face, we used tools like Skype, Wiz-i-Q, and Join.me to provide virtual meeting environments. We have enjoyed our experience learning together and now have a wonderful arsenal of technology tools, best practices and strategies to ensure that our learning environments are engaging and that they provide ample opportunities for student achievement.” Blended Packages A blended model of technology professional development usually consists of online resources and an in-person local educator who has been trained by the group offering the online component. Another option for a blended package is a consultant who comes into the district to conduct face-to-face training and then continues the collaboration, training and follow-up online. Professional development that takes advantage of materials created by reputable organizations and companies and that provides the resources necessary for a local trainer or consultant to tailor the training to the needs of the district makes this a very attractive model. One provider that offers a blended teaching/learning option is Annenberg Learner. Its site includes a list of workshops that use video content, and it also provides facilitation information and a step-by-step guide. Courses can be taught by an on-site facilitator or by an independent consultant using a synchronous videoconferencing system. Online discussion boards and graduate credit are available. Devils Lake (N.D.) Public Schools uses a blended model. The district subscribes to Atomic Learning, which provides chunked segments of technology professional development as well as additional training material to help teachers support students in acquiring 21st-century skills. Local trainers assist in the online program. “An advantage of local trainers is that we know the situation our staff is in and can tailor the PD to their skills and needs,” says Devils Lake’s technology director, Mike DeFoe. “The disadvantage is trying to find times when 60 January 2012 Educators gathered for Discovery Education’s Administrator Day of Discovery last May at company headquarters. More than 100 school administrators attended workshops that highlighted many different ways schools can integrate Discovery Education into their classrooms. all staff members are available.” Many of the larger companies that have a presence in the K12 educational technology field, such as Thinkfinity, Discovery Education, Google and Adobe, have trainthe-trainer programs for districts using their products. Thinkfinity, a Verizon Foundation resource, offers a few courses for teachers. It has an extensive Thinkfinity Trainer network at the local level and with state partners that provide teachers with a wealth of resources across the curriculum and the pedagogy of embedding them into the curriculum. Professional development of this type may be offered online or faceto-face. Last year, the University of South Florida’s Center for Instructional Technology received a grant to provide both online and face-to-face professional development in the use of the resources on the Thinkfinity site to support teaching and learning, support the teachers in creating their own ICT skills and embedded technology units, and provide training for the train-the-trainer model in districts throughout the state that wanted to use a local, face-to-face option for training their teachers. Google has the Google Certified Teacher (GCT) program. Teachers apply to be GCTs and then attend a train-thetrainer session offered by Google. The large community of trained teachers is collaborative. The teachers’ expertise is in the use of Google Tools, including the Google Apps for Education suite, offered at no cost to districts that want to take advantage of the apps’ collaborative components to support teaching and learning. Each GCT has to create projects that would be easily used and replicated by any teacher using Google Apps for Education to support teaching and learning. There is also a network of Google Certified Trainers, who have passed Google Trainer Certification, who can train your staff. When I moved my district, Nauset (Mass.) Public Schools, to Google Apps for Education, the collaborative aspects of real-time creation and shared documents between students and teachers changed the way we did business. Student group projects included a revision history, so teachers could track the progress of the group. Curriculum writing with all contributors working on the same document, District Administration

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - January 2012

District Administration - January 2012
Contents
Letters
News Update
Conversations
District Profile
Administrator Profile
Finding the Perfect Fit
Kansas City Plots Next Steps
Seeking Savings in Special Ed
K12 Guide to Audio/Visual Solutions
Equipping Teachers to Infuse Technology
Flipped Classrooms Gaining Ground
Buying in Bulk
Online Identity Management
Going Mobile
Student Counsel
Online Edge
New Books
New Products
Product Focus
Professional Opinion

District Administration - January 2012