A New Type of Staff Development

Was just asked by a principal to come up with a 65 minute training that incorporated SMART Notebook 10 tools, Edmodo, and use of a wireless mouse in the classroom. This is the kind of innovative, hodge-podge training that gives teachers a taste of different tools, application ideas, and exposure but does not burn them out or make them think "this is just another thing to do." Teachers were very receptive to the structure of the training (15 minutes on educational applications of Edmodo (what you can do/how are you using it now?), 40 minutes of SMART Notebook tools (show 5 tools - here's how they work/here's when you would use them in your lesson), and 10 minutes of wireless mouse instruction (here's how to make it work/here's how you can implement it). What innovative practices are you seeing in technology integraion?

Tags: development, innovation, integration, staff

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Permalink Reply by Jill Madigan on February 9, 2013 at 1:12pm

This sounds like a great idea. Professional development has to be meaningful and this definately is. These are all types of technology that teachers have to use everyday. In our school we did receive half day smartboard training a few times during the first two years after it was installed. I know there's still a lot more that I can use it for than I actually am. A lot of times districts say here you go and don't provide the PD. I am beginning to use sites like Glogster & Prezi with my third graders instead of having them make PowerPoints (a sign of the times). If we have PD on these and other types of technology I am confident that more teachers take advantage of it and put their training into practice.

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Permalink Reply by Sherry Christiansen on February 10, 2013 at 8:58pm

I think this is a great idea. I would just add that teachers are actually on the computer while you are training them and actually being active in the training. Sometimes it can be very overwhelming learning so much in one day that most teachers will have to much information and not really know where to start when they are on their own.