After writing earlier this week (and thinking a lot about this over the last year) about teaching kids to learn, I’m thinking now about how we provide professional development to teachers and wondering if the whole approach is flawed.

There is so much emphasis on the importance of professional development (and this is how I make my own living). Most of that time is spent teaching discrete applications (e.g. Google Docs) or at best, integration strategies using general types of tools (e.g. using wikis for collaborative analysis). Some of what is taught sticks and makes it into the classroom; most probably doesn’t.

In a typical group of 20 or so teachers, there are usually one or two who grok technology as a tool for learning. More importantly, those same teachers seem to take control of their own learning and figure out what they need to know to use the tools. Most would probably do this with or without formal professional development (though they might benefit from some quicker, big picture exposure to different ideas or more in-depth in-classroom mentoring). I don’t necessarily find these teachers to be more technically adept than others; they just take the initiative to figure it out.

The majority of teachers though can’t or don’t embrace technology. They don’t have time. They don’t use technology tools in their own personal lives. They don’t see the benefits to students. They have anxiety. They don’t see it as a part of their job as educators. They can’t look at a new tool and just “figure it out.” With all those barriers, their already limited time is spent on other things.

So we talk about teaching kids 21st century skills focused on learning to learn, and yet we don’t apply this to our own learning.

Maybe we should throw out the existing PD model and start over. (I know there are a million reasons this would be difficult to implement, but I’ll save those for another post.) What do you think?

This is a short presentation on integrating handhelds into the classroom intended for teachers who have some familiarity with handhelds and want to use them more effectively with their students. It also features a list of some of the best freeware available.

Over the last year or so, I have been working on methods to differentiate professional development that I facilitate. Some things have worked better than others, and I’m refining my methods.

A lot of the impetus is on the participants, and I encourage them to take control of their own learning. Occasionally, I have a group, though, that just wont. If they don’t understand something, they don’t ask questions or use the various provided resources to help them. Worse yet, sometimes they just sit and do nothing. Others who may already know something I’m covering don’t explore new areas as I encourage them to do; they instead do email or shop online. It’s frustrating.

Over the past week, I have worked with a group that did a uniformly great job of making the most out of the PD time based on their own needs and abilities. People who were at a beginner level asked a lot of questions, used various resources provided, and learned at their own pace. People who were further along and more comfortable with what we were doing worked on advanced topics of interest to them, regardless of where we were as a group. They asked questions as needed, and everyone had a successful workshop.

After the workshop, a couple people who had asked me about something that had sent them on their own leaning course that was different from where we were as a “group” stopped to talk to me. They thanked me for letting them do their own thing and not being insistent that everyone in the group do the same activities. I thanked them for being assertive and independent about their own learning. I shared that sometimes people aren’t willing or able to do that. They went on to say that many of the workshops they go to have facilitators who are very strict about everyone “being on the same screen.” They said they’ve had bad experiences in the past with facilitators constantly looking over their shoulder and being intolerant of them working at their own pace or on their own interests.

That really got me thinking. Maybe the reason that some educators seem to have trouble taking control of their own learning in PD is that they aren’t encouraged to do so. Even worse, they may be discouraged from this.

I know that it is not always comfortable as a PD facilitator to have a roomful of participants all working on different things, at different paces, and with different styles — but that’s what differentiation is all about! If we can’t model and practice this ourselves with adult learners, how can we expect to accomplish it with kids?

The best learning practices are not always neat and orderly. We need to remember this for adults as well as kids.

We had a great time at the Web 2.0 All-You-Can-Eat Buffet workshop in San Antonio.

All of the resources we shared are available for anyone to access, share, and use in any setting in the Web 2.0 All-You-Can-Eat Buffet wiki.

Here is the “roadmap” and some quick start guides for the workshop.

Enjoy!

Over the past year, I have been working on strategies for differentiating PD. I am more convinced than ever that a great way to provide meaningful, hands-on, inquiry-driven PD is with a wiki and a “road map” that lets people work at their own level. I am trying to do less and less presentation at my workshops. I sometimes get a few comments from people who prefer a slower, step-by-step walk-through of each thing we’re doing, but most people like what I think is a more authentic and meaningful approach to PD. Here are some comments people have made about this:

“I liked being able to work at my own pace. ”

“[The wiki] was great! Everything you need to know or to have for review will be available in one easy location anytime I want it!”

“Great hands on approach. I learn best when I can do it myself.”

“These kinds of topics need time for exploration and right-at-the-time questions.”

“I liked the break up of overview and hands on. This allowed participants to play and ask questions when needed.”

“Great balance and I did not feel guilty when I was working on the laptop.” [Presenter's notes: I didn't see anyone doing email or other "off-task" things during the copious hands-on time. This made me feel good!]

Here is another free, open, wiki-based, online professional development course: Mobile Multimedia: Podcasts, Mini-Movies, and More on Handhelds.

This one covers finding, using, and creating multimedia resources for differentiating instruction with students.

In case you missed it, another earlier free, open, wiki-based, online professional development course I published earlier was Hands On: Using Mobile Technology to Differentiate Instruction. There is some overlap between these courses, but also some very different content.

Stay tuned for more of these. I am becoming a believer that wikis like these are a great professional development tool, because they extend learning beyond a f2f workshop. And because these are free and open resources, you may use them for whatever purposes you’d like, including using them for workshops at your own schools and districts. Please also add to them. (If you’re about this, make your additions in the Discussion tab.) I hope they are useful.

Technorati Tags: metc08 metc2008 metc

At NCETC yesterday, I facilitated the “Using Mobile Technology to Differentiate Instruction” workshop using a wiki. (This wiki is set up to be used to facilitate a F2F workshop, such as we did at NCETC, or to be used as a self-guided learning experience. It is also Creative Commons licensed, so you can use it at your own school or district.)

My goal of the workshop was to present less and have participants do more. Using a wiki and letting participants structure their own time (within some suggested guidelines) was a way to allow everyone to differentiate their learning. This was especially important because participants had a variety of mobile devices (Palm, PPC, iPods, laptops, etc.) and because everyone had different experience levels (as learners always do).

I was interested in the participants’ comments afterwards on how they felt it went. They liked it. One person said that she felt that she was able to really focus on her own learning without having to pay attention to what was being presented.

I too liked the format. I’ve played with using a wiki to guide a workshop a couple times now, and I’ve almost got it down. It’s a little uncomfortable for me as a “teacher” to not be “teaching,” but I’m seeing the benefits. It also helps to have a group that is assertive about their learning needs — which we all should be.

While we all thought this structure worked well, we agreed that a relatively small group was needed to make it successful. I would say a max would be 15 participants. With more than that, the one-on-one support that was needed for individual questions would be too hard. (Unless of course you had 2 facilitators, but I haven’t figured out how to clone myself yet.)

I look forward to providing more workshops in a wiki format and am especially excited about the opportunity for remote participants to be able to access these materials.

ncetc ncetc07

In my on-going quest to differentiate instruction for teachers as a part of workshops I do, I’ve been experimenting with using blogs and wikis as PD tools.

The latest installment in this is a hands on workshop on using mobile technology to differentiate instruction (coincidentally) that I am outlining in a wiki. I’m hoping that this wiki will also be able to be used as a self-study tool for those who aren’t at the workshop (or for those who attend and want a refresher or more in-depth learning later on).

Here’s a preview of a section on using ebooks.

We’ll be using this at my “HANDS ON: Using Mobile Technology to Differentiate Instruction” at NCETC on Mon., Nov. 26. If you’ll be there, I’m really looking forward to this. (This is a bring-your-own-laptop-and-mobile-device workshop. Contact me for more info.)

If not, stay tuned for the final version of this. I’ll post a note when it’s done (or as near to done as wikis get .

The newest episode of Karen’s Educational Mashups is now up. This show features podcasts from educational conferences. This is a great way to get the professional development benefits from conferences that you may not be able to attend in-person.

Image courtesy of Todd Fishburn.

Last week, I did some hands on workshops in new format — 2 hours! Normally, the shortest hands on session I’ll do is 3 hours, and I prefer 6 hours, especially for beginner podcasting sessions. But I thought I’d give this a try.

Well, I pretty much knew that with only 2 hours, I really couldn’t talk much or give any background — I’d need to do a very quick run-through of the software we’d be using and then turn folks loose to create.

I was pleasantly surprised that this format worked great! Everyone in the session jumped right in and created amazing projects. It was really a great experience.

One thing that made this work is that nearly everyone in the workshops had been in one of my earlier one-hour presentations (not hands on). This provided them the background that they needed, whet their appetites, and left them chomping at the bit to jump in and do it.

Lessons learned:

1. As a facilitator, I don’t need to talk so much.
2. People can jump in and create with minimal instruction and make amazing things in a pretty short timeframe.
3. This is a great format for differentiating instruction in professional development workshops. It lets you work individually with those who want more instruction and lets others get busy on their own.
4. Perhaps an optimal conference format is 45 or 60 min. presentation sessions in the morning, followed up by 2 or 3 hour hands-on sessions in the afternoon.

I’ve been reflecting on how we teach and learn…not with students, but with colleagues in professional development.

Unfortunately, many of us (myself included) don’t always model the use of the strategies we know are most effective for learning. Many PD workshops or presentations are the typical “sage of the stage” fair. And I’ve heard from several different teachers in master’s programs about how dry their graduate courses are.

Good teaching and learning involves students being engaged and active in their own learning. Technology isn’t a necessary component of this, but it can certainly be a useful tool.

As I’ve started incorporating tools like blogs and wikis in workshops, I’ve found that many participants are more engaged. A large part of this is providing options (differentiating instruction). Some people would rather post to a blog; others would rather write notes on post-its; still others would rather just sit and talk. I’m even starting to see the value of Twitter and virtual environments as learning tools.

Everything we can add to the mix provides more tools to reach learners, whether they are peers or students, and that all leads to more engaged learning.