Blog #1

A lack of professional development in technology use can be one of the largest obstacles towards fully integrating technology into the classroom. Having teachers who are completely comfortable and literate with up-to-date technology will help the technology to be aligned with learning goals and to be used in engaged learning projects. One time only professional development days will not meet the needs of educators. On-going professional development is the only way to have a truly successful technology professional development program. Teachers and administrators are not likely to be enthusiastic about using digital technology if they do not have a relatively high degree of confidence in their abilities to use the both the hardware and the software. Their enthusiasm will, therefore, be contagious to not only their students, but to their fellow professionals. The biggest obstacle to overcome is not the actual conquering of the “how to work it”, but “how to work it seamlessly into the require curriculum”. That is going to be the much greater concept to help teachers grasp. One way to approach a successful professional development program for technology is to make it an integral part of the technology plan. It will need to be a part of the technology budget and should be planned for by a knowledgeable technology education team. In our district, we have had a long history of finding money, buying a bunch of shiny new toys (like hardware or software) and the, not having the foresight to include budget money for on-going professional development so that the new purchases can be well used. Another issue in our district is paying for licenses that many schools and their faculty are not even aware that we have access to, so they are underused.