Providing Professional Development for Effective Technology Use

This article discusses how important it is to incorporate techonology use in the classroom as part of the curriculum.  The article was written by Ginger Rodriguez with support from The North Central Regional Educational Labratory in 2000.  Lack of professional development for technology use is one of the most serious obstacles to fully integrating technology into the curriculum (Fatemi, 1999; Office of Technology Assessment, 1995; Panel on Educational Technology, 1997).  Most teachers want to learn to use educational technology effectively, but they lack the time, access, and support necessary to do so (Guhlin, 1996). I agree with this statement and would also add knowledge. There are so many amazing ways to incorporate technology into the classroom which some teachers have never heard of.  For example, Smartboards and Skype. The classroom that I student taught in had a Smartboard which I did not like using at first.  It seemed more time consuming then helpful. After I received the addiquate training for the program I loved using the Smartboard for instruction, expecially with the Everyday Math journals.

Two requirements help ensure the success of professional development for effective technology use. First, the professional development should be an integral part of the school technology plan or overall school-improvement plan. Second, the professional development should contain all the necessary components that research has found to be important (2000). There were many suggestions in this article to get educators more interested in these specific professional development plans.  One suggestion I liked was to assess teachers current skill levels and then provide professional development according to needs.  I think these are all great suggestions that Somers Point will be incorporating in the near future with the Talent 21 grant.

The full article can be read at: http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/methods/technlgy/te1000.htm