Summer Technology Academy – a Staff Development Model

By Alix E. Peshette

Cross-posted from EdTech Gold Rush
The end-of-school frenzy has died down and now I’m truly on my summer schedule of leisure and reflection. So, here are some observations and reflection about our recent Summer Technology Academy. What motivates teachers to attend a few days of technology training right after a strenuous school year and during their summer vacation? It’s timing, topics, toys and money!

If one can grab teachers before the dog days of summer have worked their lazy magic, there is a better chance of getting good attendance. So, the Academy took place in the first four days of summer vacation. The trainers were teachers in our district who enthusiastically integrate technology across their curriculum.

Four “topic strands” were offered, each composed of two three-hour trainings over a period of two days. The topic strand would give teachers an in-depth experience in connecting curriculum with technology tools. The idea of spreading out the six hours of training over two days was to avoid information overload and allow participants time to reflect and come back with questions, and comments. The topics were planned with something for everyone, from the techno-phobic to the techno-power-user.

Computer Basics and Your Laptop as an Instructional Tool: Becoming personally proficient in technology is the first step towards instructional proficiency. Like learning a new language, it takes time, practice, experimentation and perseverance.

It’s easy to lose sight of the number of teachers who need really basic information and experiences on a computer. These people are invisible because they don’t attend trainings for fear of being embarrassed or left behind in class due to their lack of experience. Often they are veteran teachers who feel that technology has nothing to offer them in the classroom.

When they do attend trainings, the common theme for success seems to be a trainer who has patience and humor, maintains a leisurely pace and refrains from technical jargon. As these teachers gain a little confidence and learn a few cool ways to use their laptops for student instruction, using technology as a classroom tool looks much more do-able.

Wikis and Blogs and Authors on the Web: The Wikis and Blogs training gave an introduction to social networking and writing for a global audience. All the teachers left with a new blog and an opportunity to safely explore this realm during the summer.

The second part of this training, Authors on the Web, has morphed the old book club into a blog where students respond to writing prompts from the teacher and correspond with an author. What can be more real and exciting than writing for a worldwide audience and interacting with the author of the book you are reading in class? What can be more motivating to be sure that punctuation, grammar and spelling are correct?

Classroom Web Pages and Bells and Whistles: The district purchased the web management program Adobe Contribute for each school a few years ago. Every teacher has a web site on the network, which they can personalize and post current information for students and parents. Contribute has made updating web pages as simple as creating a word document. For those who had the basics down, the bells and whistles were custom banners and graphics, calendars, embedded video and pod casts.

Multimedia Mash Up: Audio and Video: Start with Open Source and freeware, learn a few easy techniques, mine the web for public domain resources and it’s Showtime! The first part of this strand introduced the possibilities and power of student narration, using Audacity and a cheap microphone. We inserted edited, multi-track audio recordings into PowerPoint, Photo Story 3 and Movie Maker. The second part was all about video without shooting video. Drop Photo Story 3 presentations into Movie Maker, toss in a public domain video clip, do a little editing, add a music track and bring out the popcorn! The number of authentic assessment possibilities for student products boggles the mind!

And as a lovely parting gift, we have….tech toys! Everyone who attended a full strand received their choice of a tech toy: 1 GB flash drive or Dell external speakers for their laptop. Often, for lack of one small piece of equipment, teachers leave a training without the resources to make it happen successfully in the classroom. In reality the cost of these give-aways came to about $11 per person. So, skip the box lunch and buy people hardware!

Rather than pay to attend a training, how about getting paid to attend? In California, K-12 school districts no longer have staff development happening within the school day. Instead, the state has given districts a pot of money to pay teachers to attend staff development outside of the school day. It’s called Buy-Back Days. Many teachers had not used up their buy back days or were three hours short of finishing a day for pay. Since Buy-Back Days for 2007 expired on June 22, it was great motivation for teachers to attend the Academy during June 18-21 to use up those days.

Over the last four years of offering summer trainings, this format proved to be the most successful. The number of teachers who attended one or more strands was amazing. Almost every topic was filled to capacity.

How does staff development happen in your district?

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Comment by SusanTsairi on July 4, 2007 at 1:52am: I started the morning off by adding this post to my delicious, then I visited your blog which is a wealth of useful information and excellent reading!
As to your question about staff development in our district, courses exist but in reaIity very few schools or teachers are taking advantage.
Despite the official Ministry position that every teacher should be implementing technology in their teaching, it seems the schools are quite reluctant to do what it takes to keep staff in the picture and up to date.
So we have situations where schools have refused to take up an offer of Free Laptop For Every Teacher "a lovely parting gift", because it would mean commiting to inservice training.
Of course teachers are free to participate in any courses they wish, but are usually too overloaded with work to think about learning new technology.

In the coming school year I have managed finally to convince my principal that lessons in the computer room should no longer be called "computer lessons". Teachers will come to the computer room together with their students to work on topics they are studying in the classroom. My hope is that when they see what is possible with technology today the teachers will become more motivated to learn and implement.

Comment by Alix E. Peshette on July 4, 2007 at 10:16am: Susan,
Your district's situation is rather similar to where my district was about seven years ago when teachers first received laptops. The laptops came with the mandate that everyone would now take student attendance electronically. Whole groups of teachers used the laptops for exactly that and nothing more!

Human nature being what it is, I think everyone asks the question "what's in it for me?" If the answer is more work and greater expectations, many people opt out. If the deal is sweetened with "Hey, let me show you how to attach pictures of your family to an email" teachers begin to see what is in it for them personally.

I really like your idea of changing "computer lessons" to something that speaks to a teacher's curriculum needs. Once they see a few cool places to go online for student research, the enthusiasm might grow.

Another approach is to have a member of the staff who is very techie give a 3-5 minute presentation on how he or she uses technology in the classroom at the monthly staff meetings. There is nothing like having one of the rank and file show what's possible. They can be very successful agents-of-change because they are one of the staff - not an external district-level person pushing an agenda.

Another component that leads to technology adoption (or not) is how much the school administrators use technology. They can be both role models and architects of technology use. Once Principals stop sending out paper copies of the daily bulletin and use only email, people start reading their email!

I happen to have a rather large irreverent streak which I usually keep hidden, but it sneaks out in the signatures I use in my emails. Here's one of my favorites.

"Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach that person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks."
-Anonymous

Comment by SusanTsairi on July 4, 2007 at 3:58pm: Alix, thank you for sharing your experience and for the very practical suggestions, I can think of a couple of teachers whose use of technology would probably wet the appetites of the rest of the staff, I'll ask them if they would be willing to share with the others.
As for the principal using email - well, here's an alternate ending to your quote: teach that person to use email and your mailbox will overflow...
As you have probably guessed our staff do use email, I'm having a much harder time - getting them to use the school website and have been suggesting for a long time that daily bulletins, information about staff and team meetings, recommended links etc be chanelled through the staff forum and notice board on the website. At least then they'll have a reason to visit it, and may eventually discover some of the options available to them. So far I haven't had success but I'll keep on trying.

Comment by Aaron Slutsky on July 5, 2007 at 4:29pm: We decided to do our summer training a little different this year. We held a two day conference. We had 45 minutes sessions with about 5 being offered at any given time. Some of our sessions were related to education and others were just for personal knowledge.

We also decided not to give any handouts, instead we all put our notes on a wiki . You can see it at http://stc07.pbwiki.com