Professional+Development+for+Teachers

Tinamarie: Red Mike: Black How could the districts most effectively provide professional development to teachers about incorporating social media tools into their teaching? We have felt that the knowledge gained from our education has been difficult at times to transfer this information to our regular classroom teaching. Often times, new teachers are given a mentor to help them through their first year which at times can be a frustrating experience. With social media being used in the classroom more widely today, we feel each teacher should have a mentor teacher for technology. We feel that professional development with social media should be ongoing and throughout the day. Many teachers, too, want to know how social media can be used in their own instructional areas. There could be an open area that gives teachers an opportunity to collaborate with other teachers. We used a short video from YouTube as one of our means of having someone talking about social media and its use in the classroom. There is a second part to this video that is more involved with social media and this could be a starting point for teachers who haven taken many technology courses. We feel when teachers have access and start becoming comfortable to use online resources they will be just as comfortable in the long run using it in their classroom. Possibly, media specialists within the school can help students and teachers use media to help learning. At one time, portfolios of students work were a popular framework to display student’s work and may have some use for open house visits. With professional development, there are a lot of in-service days for training which may be a good time to use some of these days for training in diversified areas of teaching. We also feel that the teacher cannot be successful if parents and students are not involved in the whole idea of learning a new skill with technology. Technology would be a huge benefit in communication among students, parents and teachers. We feel too, that many students may not have access to computers outside of the classroom so in the classroom there should be time to open up some of the social media websites to students. We are strong in the feeling that principals, superintendents and other leaders of a district have a lot of responsibility to make our feelings of ongoing, embedded development of social media in the classroom a reality. They have to be diligent about scheduling time within the regular school day for teachers to meet with other teachers to discuss new ways of learning. Walking through, talking about the media and meeting with the teachers regularly can reinforce that these leaders believe in social media teaching and are able to keep this vision in check are very good ways of letting teachers know that they are with them in this pursuit and progressive way of bringing an important aspect of teaching to teachers who may resist learning new ways of teaching and supporting everyone so this is a successful venture for their district and teachers.