Last year, among budget cuts in the district, half of the Instructional Technology Specialists were cut. The half of us that were left now had double the teachers to serve. We were not able to offer as much staff development to our staff. At the same time, the attendance at our course offerings has declined. Teachers report being too busy with tutoring, personal lives, grading and parent communication to attend staff development sessions.
In the past, ITSs served only our own campuses – each ITS training the teachers at her own campus. If the ITSs instead worked together and pooled our resources, we could offer more staff development to more teachers in more ways. We could offer evening webinars, on-demand online courses, and hands-on courses at different campuses to try to accommodate teacher needs. Every course offering could be offered to the entire district, which would maximize our efforts.
Having good technology support is a must in order for us to keep up with all the technology our there. We have to keep up so we can try different things in our classrooms. Good luck.
ReplyDeleteTechnology professional development is one that is critical to the success of students, staff and teachers in this day and age. Your action plan has good intentions. The perception of professional development regading technology specialists does seem to be at the bottom of the priority list but the need for effective, quality technology specialists is at the top. I am looking forward to following your research.
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