Dana+and+Richard

= Dana and Richard's page =

Our prompt is: //How could the districts most effectively provide professional development to teachers about incorporating social media tools into their teaching?// (Dana's response will be in blue, Richard's response will be in red )

I think that the most effective way that districts can provide professional development about incorporating social media tools into their teaching is through in-service days. Let's face it...most teachers I work with (including myself) have families, therefore have very little time after school for training. My district has tried to offer some training sessions after school over the years and it never worked. Asking teachers to take courses such as our Social Media course is also fruitless. Many teachers will say they don't have the time to be bothered. By utilizing all in-service and/or Act 80 days for this type of training may be the best recourse. Districts may also want to consider having 'floating' subs so teachers can have time to actually engage in a wikipage, virtual tour, create a webquest, etc. There's probably no best way, but this may be a start.

Learning how to use social media tools is only the beginning. Implementing them into a class in a meaningful way takes a lot of creativity and time. Most teachers are creative by nature. The time part of it needs to be fixed by the people making the decisions. Think of time it would take to come up with a valid topic for you class, pick the proper social media tool, set up that particular tool, fit it into a daily classroom routine, then manage it. There is a lot of panning involved and a lot of time needed. Districts will have to allocate portions of the day, on top of current planning time, so teachers can create and manage these new tools

Another consideration might be tech coaches. I know some districts have them; in fact, I think someone in this course may have mentioned that they have tech coaches in their district. That would be awesome. That person could make rounds to each teacher and help them design a lesson that utlizes technology. Even better, this person could look at teachers' plans and find lessons that would be conducive to some type of technology 'infusion'. I have included a youtube video entitled, "Top 10 Tips for Using Technology in the Classroom." It's worth watching!



Check out this pie graph from flickr that deminstrates the Construction of Social Learning Environments. []

Side note... Little political fun. every teacher should watch this. "Hello is there anyone home" []

When it comes to trying something new in the classroom, sometimes we just have to take a chance and roll the dice!