Week+6+-+Topic+1+-+Content

=Topic #1 - Content=

Describe a professional development activity that you could do with teachers in your school to increase their understanding of technology for 21st century learning.

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 * Your name: S. Scott Matchett**
 * Your school: Lancaster City Schools**
 * Description of Idea or link to prod : Teacher Based Teams and formative assessments.**

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 * When our TBT's meet I would like to create a voicethread to explain to each TBT what the focus of the 20 meeting will be for each group. Then I would also like to have a TBT wiki so all the teams can post their formative assessment results. This would save time and paper. Then when the meeting has concluded TBT team leaders could reply with questions from the meeting or comments on the voice thread. This we be a great way to track our TBT meetings and keep the administration informed as we can not be in all meetings that are occuring at the same time. ﻿**=====


 * Your name: Dennis Eichinger**
 * Your school: Belpre high School**
 * Description of Idea or link to prod : " Learning, Back in Fifteen minutes."**

I would ask faculty members and support staff to use fifteen minutes of their planning period or lunch period if preferred, each week to engage in uninterrupted sustained Personal learning time (PD activity) to research one 21st Century Technology Learning tool each week for a period of nine weeks. Using Google docs, the Principal will post 21st Century Tools for teachers to review and encourage each teacher to share specific ideas how each tool selected for research would enhance instructional strategies and improve student learning in their particular classroom and subject area. At the end of the nine week period, the staff member will select at least one skill to embed into their instructional and learning activities during the second nine week session. This is not an original thought. I read about this idea from one of our assignments in a previous lesson.


 * Your name:** Melinda Cales
 * Your school:** OHDELA (Alternative Education Academy)
 * Description of Idea or link to prod :** Best Practices Wiki

One PD I think that would be beneficial to our entire school would be to teach my colleagues about Wiki's and Web 2.0 Tools by presenting about Wiki's and Web 2.0 tools and then asking them to work on creating a school wide teacher Wiki in which each teacher would be provided a page to blog about their uses of Web 2.0 tools, content areas or grade levels would be provided a page to display student samples of use of Web 2.0 tools and a page would also be set aside for teachers to use to add and categorize Web 2.0 tools with a brief summary of what it is and links to example projects. I would also include in this presentation the NETS tech standards and how to address them in your class. I believe that perhaps other schools have done similar projects, but I think this would be a way to make the PD not only effective but lasting. Teachers would be encouraged to share from the Wiki at future PD and administrators could also monitor the Wiki activities and help identify teachers who may need support or who could provide support.


 * Your name: Joni Craver**
 * Your school: Alternative Education Academy**
 * Description of Idea or link to prod : Voicethread discussion**

One PD that would be beneficial would be a voicethread discussion. Staff could be grouped either in content teams or grade level teams. Each staff memeber in that group would need to create a new voicethread with an example of how they have used a Web 2.0 tool for a lesson or unit. Then each member in the group would need to view the voicethread, comment and give that staff member other ideas how to expand what they are already doing if they have something to share. And they would need to do this once or twice every nine weeks to make sure that everyone is using Web 2.0 activities in their classrooms. All voicethreads would be open for all staff so that they are able to get ideas from the other groups, but they would not need to comment on all of the voicethreads. As staff see what others are doing, they can let administration know where they feel their needs are and if there needs to be a school wide PD activity for a certain aspect of Web 2.0 tools.

Some in the English department have been very reluctant to use technology other than basic word documents to type a research paper. One of our most neglected standards is that of editing and revision because the students often feel that when they are done writing, they are done with the assignment. I would like to submit a sample student paper to the English department and show the teachers how easy it is to help the students revise and edit on line. The teachers can look at the student paper, make a few edits and revisions and hopefully see how efficient and effective this process can be as opposed to collecting the hard copies, making all the changes in ink, and handing the paper back for the kids to fix or not. As we move on through the year, the PD can be expanded to include ways to team students up to collaborate on a paper or to collectively edit papers or projects that the students write.
 * Your name: Kelli Marvin **
 * Your school: Lancaster High School **
 * Description of Idea: Google docs to teach revising and editing **

Kelli, This sounds like a great way to deal with fellow faculty who are reluctant to use technology that you KNOW is user-friendly and will help make their jobs easier in the end. I agree that getting kids (and adults) to edit and rewrite can be challenging. Kathy


 * Your name: Michael Chaffee**
 * Your school: Windham High School**
 * Description of Idea or link to prod : Teach the teachers**

We are very lucky at our school to be recipients of both Round One money for our Junior High School and the current grant for the high school. When we are finished with this grant we will have 10 staff members that will have completed this course. I would like to use these ten as the experts for in-house professional development. I would like to introduce the various ideas in the format of a technology tool fair where each staff member demonstrates a 21st Century tool to a small group. The staff would then have the opportunity to follow up with the expert on an individual basis. trained teachers would not only be able to demonstrate how to use the tool but would be able to share examples of students' work. We are putting a tremendous amount of emphasis on peer to peer accountability and training in our district and I think this is a great way to expand our training to the rest of the teaching staff. I think it will also create a feeling of involvement for the teachers who were not included in the grant. As the administrator I would require that each staff member include several 21st Century tools into his or her teaching to give weight to the professional development.