I spoke with my mentor who is a media specialist in a Cobb county elementary school. We discussed technology staff development somewhat in general terms, but more specifically in terms of the tech refresh this school received two weeks before school started this August. Keheley Elementary has been a MAC school for years, but with the refresh, all computers were changed over to PCs. Many of the teachers knew nothing but MACs because they have taught there for so long, so there has been quite an adjustment period that is still going on. Generally, Lynn provides one, possibly two, in-services once a school year. However, with the refresh issues, she developed a year-long technology staff development workshop that she holds once a month after school for an hour. Eighteen of the staff members signed up for this class. She is teaching things such as basic PC skills, OPAC (Destiny in Cobb), and basic PowerPoint.
The strategies she uses for technology staff development include developing and writing lessons, determining times when staff can attend, and allowing additional time for other topics to be covered because there are always questions. Because she is in an elementary school, staff development can only be held after school and therefore has to be voluntary. I asked about professional learning days; Lynn told me those are predetermined by the county as to what will be taught those days, so there is no flexibility for professional learning days. She did say that she has those trainings approved by the county so that her staff can earn PLUs.
The most common problem is time. Again, locally-driven elementary staff development for technology has to held after school whereas middle and high school staff have built in planning periods during which these classes can be held. This leads to another problem: lack of funds, for if the staff developments were held during the school day, substitutes would have to be hired.
Interesting that your school just switched from Mac's to PC's. I am curious about how this was received from the staff. I love the suggestion on having tutorials stored online so teachers can view them at their convenience. I also think it helps so when teachers can attend an in-service they have at least some familiarity with the tool so they can get past that "helpless feeling" point many of us have when learning a new application. Also, not having handouts is a great idea. Not just from a budget perspective but that most of technology is best learned hands on not looking at paper.
ReplyDeleteI also found it interesting that your school is switching to Macs. At the newspaper where I work, we use Macs almost exclusively. The only two people on PCs work in billing and use a lot of Excel. Three people in the building have Microsoft Office programs for Mac, but I am not one of them. One other person has a laptop with conversion software, and we spend a lot of time emailing him things to be opened and used in Mac. I’m not entirely sure that PowerPoints can be opened anywhere in the building, but Word, Excel, and the occasional Publisher presentation can be opened by these other staff members.
ReplyDeleteIt does get frustrating, using a different system than what seems like the rest of the world. You have to tell people over and over again to email you the information in the actual body of the email, not as an attachment. And you have to ask them to please not email a Word document with a photograph pasted on it. That just makes things very difficult for the photographers who have to try to fix it for newspaper printing. Rather than RGB, which is one form of printing, we use CMYK, four-color printing.
However, there are a lot of plusses about Macs. I’ve found that it is much easier to maneuver pictures and text in Mac than it is in any Microsoft program. We use Quark Xpress, News Edit, and iQue to create the paper, and I must say, if I had to do it all in Word or Publisher, I’d have killed a few people before now and there would be a giant hole in my computer monitor from the sledge hammer’s impact.
I truly hope that the technology training Lynn is creating and providing to the teachers is helpful to them. As someone who has to switch back and forth between a PC and a Mac daily, it isn’t the easiest transition. But there are pros and cons to both and I hope the teachers at your school learn all the pros of Macs that they can!
It was very good that your mentor saw the need to have a year long in service and was able to offer this for teachers. I know that the teachers are grateful to have this support as they transition from MAC to PC. Many times there are changes made but no support for teachers to make the change effectively. Elementary school does have a disadvantage of not having an extended planning time like middle and high schools but I have found that if a staff development is something needed teachers are willing to attend even if it’s after school. It seems that time and money are always an issue when it comes to teacher training!
ReplyDeleteThat is interesting that your school changed completely from MAC to PC. We have MAC computers in our school except for one PC computer lab and the elementary students are very confused when they visit that computer lab because it is so different from the MAC computers they are used to using in the classroom. However, I think it allows for a great opportunity to teach the students how to use both types of computers.
ReplyDeleteYour mentor gave you some great tips to remember when you are conducting in services for teachers. I really like the idea of having tutorials online for teachers to visit as often as needed. I also agree with your mentor about not having a lot of handouts for teachers. I have attended many meetings with teachers where handouts were given out and they were thrown away in the trash as soon as the meeting was over. What a waste of time and paper! If the information was online in a tutorial format, the teachers and the presenter could save time and paper. Great tips, thanks for sharing!
Lisa,
ReplyDeleteVery interesting information. I have never used a MAC, so I can't compare its use to that of a PC, but I can only imagine the frustration that a lot of teachers are going through since they have become so familiar with one type of computer. I know from experience that it is very hard to incorporate technology into your classroom when you have to spend more time learning how to use it than actually creating successful ways to apply it to lessons. This year I received a SmartBoard and I knew very, very little about it. I wasn't able to go to a workshop until about a month into school, so I spent those first few weeks just kind of looking at it and "wondering" what it could actually do. The InService day was a huge help, partly because it wasn't just lecture. The instructor taught and reviewed for about 3 hours, then we had the rest of the school day and half of another to actually create material that could be used on the SmartBoard. I learned and retained a lot more using that method that if I had been forced to just sit and watch for a day and a half.
To some extent, I disagree with the idea of using no handouts. I love having something to refer back to in case I need to "freshen up" on techniques. I do agree that the majority of teachers probably don't use them, so maybe the solution would be to store the "handouts" on the media center or technology web page so they can be accessed by those teachers who need them.