I realized there was a wide gap in technology training at my school the first week of work when I tried to open an attachment from my principal using my class computer. My aide said that she and the former teacher never could get mail from him. “It always looks Chinese”. I had to locate and install Word! For five years, they never figured out the problem. Since then, I have found some very tech savvy teachers and novices alike. Once the parapros found out I was willing to teach them, I became a go-to resource. This week, the secretary dropped a file on her keyboard and her desktop images rotated sideways. She called me to figure it out. Training within my school seems to come from who you know and an “as needed” basis. If you suddenly have a problem, you ask the nearest person who you think can help you. Our media specialist will only tell us to put in a work order with the county tech person so we use each other for speed.
My principal once gave everyone a handout on how to streamline start-up programs so the computers would run faster. This is the only “school” training from above we have received. Our media specialist has not ever set up training. The county offers courses at their offices. We have a handy website with tutorials. http://tlc.floydboe.net I guess she figures that is sufficient. The parapros were all required to take a class on Word and were also trained on the new online time clock. The county allowed them time during the day for that training. Some teachers have embraced Smart Board technology faster than others. One set up her own after-school training for other teachers who wanted additional training help beyond the county class. The county will only train you if you have a Smart Board in your classroom. When I changed grade levels and needed to know how to access and use Study Island and the Reading Counts programs, I relied on my grade level teachers for guidance.
If I were the media specialist, I would survey teachers about what interesting programs they currently use which others might not know exist. I would publish a list of who is using what in their classrooms so we can share those with everyone interested. I would encourage teachers to share technology they come across with the media specialist even if they haven’t had time to research it themselves. This would give me more leads in finding resources. I would advertise what is already available at school and offer to teach it to anyone wanting to learn. I would set aside time after school, on work days and staff development days to teach anyone interested. I would provide examples and would give a brief synopsis of why teachers or staff might want to learn it to make their jobs easier or their classes more exciting. I would try to make as much accessible to them to try in their own classrooms because I think they would feel more secure there. I would provide self-paced tutorials with take-away handouts so they wouldn’t have to keep referring back to a lesson.
I would never force teachers to attend classes. Instead, I would get a list of teachers and staff who were knowledgeable and willing to teach peers and offer those up as hallway resources. Some people are just not comfortable asking just anyone for help. If I can provide peer teaching support, than that is fine, too. Teachers who have worked at many different grade levels will likely find someone on the list they feel comfortable asking for a lesson. The biggest barrier to training is time. Even when teachers are interested in learning, it is difficult to schedule the time needed to learn and practice. This is why I think trying to get other teachers to peer tutor is helpful. Being on the same schedule gives them the opportunity to squeeze out time to learn what interests them. I think it would be great to get a group together in the computer lab to walk them through a tech class, but it isn’t always possible.
I'm surprised to see your county doesn't provide more technology support. In our county, everyone had to take a computer course that covered use of all the basic computer software and functions. Everyone is allowed to sign up for technology professional development training. I recently took 2 days of Activ Board training, even though I don't have one. I thought it would be great to take it so I have experience for my future job as a Media Specialist! The only problem is that schools don't always agree to pay for a substitute if you're a classroom teacher. It's wonderful that you are so dedicated to offering training, even outside of school hours. I definitely think it is helpful to design in-service modules, like we did in our instructional design, class and offer them to teachers to work through at their own pace.
ReplyDeleteWithout the support of central office you are indeed left to fend for yourselves. Your ideas for creating a team environment in your school are very creative. As you implied - it sounds like teachers already rely on each other so why not develop a system that facilitates sharing ideas and solutions. I especially like your idea of creating a master list of peer tutors is great. This way a teacher with a problem or who wishes to learn a particular technology will have access to a local source that may be able to assist them.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that it is important for the media specialist to find creative ways to offer tech training. Your suggestion for providing online tutorials that can be accessed by a teacher whenever they have free time is great. Time can be a big barrier to providing training and the online training is a great solution. Another solution my mentor has successfully implemented is Lunch and Learns. She uses fine money to provide an inexpensive lunch. She chooses topics that can be presented in 20 minutes or less. Of course, she is at the high school level, so there are only 4 possible lunch periods for teachers. She does lunch A and lunch C on one day. And lunch B and lunch D the next.
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ReplyDeleteI think that your teacher tutoring concept is an innovative strategy. Many teachers do not have the opportunity to engage in school workshops or tutorials; however, the teacher list would educate teachers how they could obtain needed information. I also think that this strategy would encourage teachers to collaborate with each other. The classroom teachers could learn from skills of other teachers and provide information about how they use technology tools in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteI also imply that many teachers have numerous techniques for using technology resources in the classroom; therefore, you could also create a Delicious website where teachers could create links to websites that could be used in the classroom. This policy would allow other teachers to read the websites and use these technology resources to improve their classroom activities.
I suggest that the media specialist could also purchase professional books and resources that inform teachers about using technology resources in the classroom. The teacher could learn from these innovative tools. The media specialist could also collaborate with teachers and allow these individuals to engage in designing the workshops. This tactic would allow teachers to impact what concepts and skills are summarized in the workshops.
I also like your writing about creating online tutorials. I agree with this strategy. Teachers could quickly use these tools to learn about classroom resources.
I like your suggestions for including technology resources in the classroom. These strategies allow teachers to learn about technology resources, and the school can use these policies to promote collaboration between teachers.
Your take on organizing the technology training and surveying the staff in your school sounds much like the way my district runs training. Each year an online survey is sent out asking for requests or priority ranking for scheduling training sessions. These results are used in planning these sessions for the Best Practice Institute which is usually held the first week that school is out. Other issues you mentioned do occur in my school and district such as asking the person most available for help with an issue. Often for me it is because the media specialist is unavailable whether she is at a meeting or training or working with students. She is great about following up when she is contacted but it is a fairly large school (about 850 students). Despite the size, I am fortunate that we have a close faculty and most people are comfortable sending an email, even a mass email with a question or a help request.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like our schools have a lot in common. Last year our county decided to cut our IT support and that one IT could be shared between several elementary schools. Our current IT was moved and we got "Mrs. Personality" in her place. It was a rough year. In order to be able to use our smaller computer lab, I had to figure out how to get it connected to the network. She had no clue. If you had any tech trouble it took forever to get her help even though you were following protocol and running it through the county website. She would swoosh in fix it and then begin rabmling tech gargon at lightning speed like you knew what she was talking about.
ReplyDeleteI also set up all the network connections in my classroom and most of the other classrooms on my hallway. It is definitely the age of "go to someone who knows that is close by".
I agree that I would try to offer as much tech training as possible. It is not something that admin thinks a lot about but still expects you to integrate technology into your lessons. I would not make it a forced issue either. I would also try to find areas that were of importance to teachers and provide "how to" sheets as well. One thing that we do is post them onto our school intranet. We have one central location where teachers know that can find tutorials. This would also work on a media center web page.
I think it is unfortunate that some media specialists do not try to offer tech support for teachers. I am of the opinion that media specialists should always strive to be as knowledgeable as possible in the realm of technology. I realize that it isn't realistic to expect a media specialist to be able to fix as many problems as a tech specialist, but there are probably many technology problems that arise in a given day at a school that only require a moderate amount of knowledge to fix. It isn't very efficient to always direct teachers with tech problems to the county tech person so that they have to wait for that problem (maybe a simple one!) to be fixed. Media specialists should not only know how to troubleshoot technology problems on an intermediate level, but they should also seek to impart this knowledge to teachers.
ReplyDeleteThis is obviously a hot and interesting topic. Who is responsible for training? I think most school level employees see the cuts that the districts are making as arbitrary and unnecessary. The federal and state funding guidelines and restraints have necessitated that districts make these cuts. The impact of fewer tech support and trainers in this technology dependent era will put a strain on integration.
ReplyDeleteSeveral of the post suggested surveying teachers about training needs. A district wide needs assessment is submitted each year in March. A needs assessment is submitted to our district's professional development department and allocation for district-wide technology training is set for the upcoming year. Unfortunately, the response for needs is too low to get an accurate picture of the district's true needs. There is an attempt to predict training needs for upcoming initiatives. At the district level training on 21st century technology is offered with PLUs. The response is normally overwhelming for training with credits attached. School administration can also schedule training for teachers which offer PLUs.
I have done training which lasted all year on our Teaching and Learning Carts. The training was held during faculty meeting time. The training was mandatory for each teacher wanting to receive the Teaching and Learning Carts (TLC). The principals at some schools made it mandatory that each teacher get a cart. They also made it apart of the "Highly Qualified" status for the district that each teacher complete a 21st century training course.