Technology skills….lacking! The faculty at my school has little technology skills and unfortunately no desire to acquire new skills. However, the two staff development training aids that I put together for Instructional Design were a big hit. The faculty appreciated being able to have the information and instructions to look over and practice with on their own time.
Technology training, I feel, is an asset in my county. I wish more teachers would take advantage of it. The training takes place at a new elementary school that had a “technology wing” added to it when it was built. The training is provided by the various ITS in Muscogee County. The times of the training varies from full day to afterschool hours. Some of the technology training that is being offered is Smartboard, Wiki, Destiny, Photostory and Google Apps. Of course the full day (8 hours) training is the best but the school has to provide the funds for the subs and the school doesn’t have the funds available. If training is necessary for teachers such as the new Crosspointe Training that we are doing right now the ITS will come to the school. We have enough lab space for the ITS to teach the teachers during their planning periods.
Our county is pushing the use of webinars and Elluminate sessions for various training. If technology training were my responsibility I would rely on as many electronic portfolio lessons as possible. I also intend to incorporate the tech tips from the Technology for Media Services class. Teachers appreciate that I value their time. If I feel that face-to-face sessions are necessary, I would do the training during planning periods.
Do for Technology Training:
Make the content useful
Apply the material to the standards
Make it user friendly
Be available for assistance
Don’t for Technology Training:
Make it boring
Waste time
Talk over their heads
Go into training unprepared
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I think that you hit the nail on the head in saying that teachers sometimes have no desire to acquire new technology skills. It is that old attitude...if it's not broken, don't fix it1 I do think that if teachers are not overwhelmed by all this technology but focus on a goal a semester or year based on content and or grade level, it would feel more manageable. Also trainers and media specialists need to be on top of their game! They need to be excited about technology. hey need to collaborate in advance and give real, practical uses of tools. Tools need to taught, reinforced and applied..isn't that what we make our students do - so should teachers! Media specialists need to assist in support measures for the different level of expertise. We do not even have a webpage for our media center and as part of my field ours I am creating one with instructions for technology...I do not think that is too difficult to do and so supportive of teachers.
ReplyDeleteFor the most part, our teachers are eager to learn more technology. There are the select few in the school that believe they are close enough to retirement that they don't need to learn anything new with technology. Our principal communicates mostly through email, so all teachers MUST use email and they have to use the computer to put in attendance and grades. Other than those few simple things, they really don't have to use technology. Something new that is being implemented this year is a technology component to teachers' lesson plans. They must show that they have attempted some type of technology during the week. I believe that this change is uncomfortable for some, but needed.
ReplyDeleteOur teachers have received ample training to implement technology. There comes a time when teachers have to be held to a higher standard. Teaching is all about change and moving forward. Let's face it, technology is here and not going anywhere!