Creating A Professional Development Program
“One of the most challenging and important tasks a technology coordinator will face is the creation of a professional development program for all employees of a school or district. A successful professional development program allows a school district to prepare teachers (and, in turn, students) to use technology as a natural part of the curriculum" (Frazier & Hearrington, 2017, p. 38).
I like to speak to truth, and I can say that there has to be a lot of truth in these first two sentences. When I first began my educational career I was not a building technology coordinator at the time. There was no one at that time to help me with any of the professional tools and knowledge I needed to do my job more efficiently. And to be more honest, I didn’t even know we had a building technology coordinator until I was offered the position by our principal after the lady had retired.
In those beginning years, I was facilitating a distance learning program where we offered many courses for our students to take online. This was years before the current pandemic we are in now. Back then, what I was doing was very futuristic to allow students to take courses that our school might not offer like forestry, or another foreign language like Mandarin that we didn’t have a physical teacher in the school to teach.
I think that if I knew that I had a technology coordinator back then, I would have definitely used their expertise and knowledge to assist me in my growth as an educator. The lady who is now retired didn’t make herself known to the staff as holding that position, so if you didn’t really know her, you just never knew.
Once I took over the position after she retired, I began to learn about the abilities that we had as the technology coordinator. I began to see professional development opportunities for myself and other people as it related to technology. I’m now in my 4th year as the technology coordinator and I’ve learned a lot just by my own personal experience.
Another important moment for me occurred when the technology department head within our district started calling a city wide technology coordinator’s meeting. This helped me understand our responsibilities and purposes for our staff.
“There are two key sets of standards the technology coordinator should be aware of and use when planning and implementing professional development. The first is the Standards for Professional Learning (Learning Forward, 2011), and the second is the ISTE Standards for Teachers” (Frazier & Hearrington, 2017, p.39).
From my reading, I learned that the Standards for Professional Learning (Learning Forward, 2011) consist of seven elements and four prerequisites for effective professional learning. These standards help the technology coordinators know what to look for to support and increase educator effectiveness and the results we all seek for our students.
Being able to have leadership skills to create support systems for professional learning is important. Having the right data and knowing the types of students and educators we have is important. And having the required resources that are needed for educational learning.
As I mentioned, when I first started in education I didn’t have a technology coordinator that knew the resources that I needed to be successful for myself and students. And being able to implement these things are very important to the success of a technology coordinator.
Knowing and being active with trying to accomplish these things keeps a good technology coordinator aligned with servicing their staff and students in an effective way. With my new found knowledge I have been more active and more engaged at finding out what our staff needs to be successful and searching out the required professional development opportunities that they will enjoy and benefit them directly within their classrooms.
There is another article I read that presents a study which investigates the leadership characteristics of technology coordinators. It discusses the different roles of a technology coordinator in promoting technology integration within schools or school districts which include the tasks of being an instruction expert, an effective technology expert, and a school leader (Sugar, Holloman, 2009).
In our group zoom discussion on our topics we discussed how important the technology coordinators role in knowing technology was. We also discussed that not only should the technology coordinator be someone that is “tech saavy” or is an effective technology expert, but the person should be an instruction expert as well.
Having a balance blend will allow for the person to know what’s going on with the current trends as well as have the understanding and connectedness to know how to provide the proper professional development each person in the school or district would need for student success.
I think if I keep learning and always align these standards with my role as the technology coordinator, I’ll be able to effectively seek out and present various opportunities for technology growth within my building and district.
Watch this video for even more insight and advice on how to be an effective technology coordinator that provides effective professional development for educators. Another good article that I read also backs the statements made about the difficulty for professional development programs. The study in this article mentioned that, "Third, the Technology Coordinator needs time built into their schedules to afford them the opportunity to work on professional development (PD) projects" (Reinhart, Slowinski, 2004).
Also, here is a picture of the main book that helped me understand how challenging it was for a technology coordinator to develop professional development programs for schools or districts.
In conclusion, as mentioned in my group’s discussion from our required reading of this book. The contents in this book definitely lives up to the book title, because it has been such a great handbook thus far for me and my further understanding of a technology coordinator and their responsibilities.
References
Frazier, M., & Hearrington, D. (2017). The Technology Coordinator's handbook. International Society for Technology in Education.
Sugar, W., & Holloman, H. (2009). Technology Leaders Wanted: Acknowledging the Leadership Role of a Technology Coordinator. TechTrends: Linking Research & Practice to Improve Learning, 53(6), 66-75. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-009-0346-y
Reinhart, J., Slowinski, J., & Association for Educational Communications and Technology, W.D. (2004). K-12 technology Coordinators: Expectations and Realities. Association for Educational Communications and Technology.
Darryl, As we discussed earlier, I certainly believe that this book is a great way to inform others of all the duties of a technology coordinator. One of my favorite lines from the textbook (also mentioned in my blog post) was the part about wearing so many different "hats", which perfectly describes how I feel about my job.
ReplyDeleteI also like how you mention if you had the knowledge you have now when you started teaching remotely, you feel as if you could have done a better job. An article I found during research on this topic stated that most coaches prioritize gaining knowledge to use in teaching practices over most other duties. This is exactly the path you seem to be on now, and as I'm sure you know, it's better for you to find understanding and knowledge of your practices before you can begin educating anyone else.
Thank you for sharing your heart, thoughts & knowledge!
Katie
References:
Fraizer, M. & Hearrington, D., (2017). Technology coordinators handbook (3rd ed.). International Society for Technology in Education.
Leon, J. J. C., Rodriguez, M. F. P., & Pozuelos, E. F. J. (2020) Building the role of ICT coordinators in primary schools: A typology based on task prioristisation. British Journal of Educational Technology, 51(3), 835-852.
Thanks for your kind remarks! I think that's one of my favorite lines so far as well because the technology coordinator surely does "wear many different hats."
DeleteHey, I enjoyed reading your post and how transparent you were about your experience as a technology coordinator. The need for more professional development for teachers and administrators is imperative. In our class textbook, the authors emphasized, you cannot teach what you do not know. I believe professional development will remove the incompetent barrier of technology usage among administrators and teachers.
ReplyDeleteThanks Emanuel, appreciate the words. I agree with you that making sure we have quality "professional development will remove the incompetent barrier of technology usage among administrators and teachers."
DeleteHi, Darryl!
ReplyDeleteAt his trial for immorality, Socrates supposedly uttered the famous dictum, “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Daryll, you took a candid and open approach to examine your professional practices, and I found it very refreshing. Too often, in our education bubble, we complete a project or task and put it away without examining our results and drawing conclusions. I found myself guilty of this practice when leading our ACIP team to write our plan. Until last year, I rushed through the process to check off a box and submit the plan to the ALSDE. This year, I started looking intentionally at our plan, revising our themes, and looking at what we did at Greenville High School. The process has enlightened me, and I think our ACIP shows what we are trying to accomplish.
Understanding the ISTE standards and how they apply to both instructional leaders and technology coordinators is a great way to prevent the situation at your school with your former technology coordinator. I am optimistic you would also be an incredible mentor to future technology coordinators. Your passion for professional learning shines in your blog post!
References
Frazier, M., & Hearrington, D. (2017). The technology coordinator’s handbook (3rd ed.). International Society for Technology in Education.
ISTE standards: Education leaders. (n.d.). Retrieved February 1, 2022, from https://bit.ly/3umfYKC
Sagor, R. D., & Williams, C. (2017). The action research guidebook: A process for pursuing equity and excellence in education (3rd ed.). Corwin.
Darryl,
ReplyDeleteI love how you are a lifelong learner. A former principal of mine used to always say...you will never fully arrive. What she meant by that is that we all have learning that can take place regardless of where we are in our profession. I appreciate that embrace from you and how you encourage your staff to deepen their knowledge. Frazier and Hearrington (2017) state, "technology coordinators are key players in fostering, supporting, and sustaining the use of technology for teaching and learning" (p. 32). From reading your blog and talking with you through chats, it sounds like you are doing just that. Your school is very fortunate to have someone that looks out for them and encourages them to try new things. I also enjoyed reading that you solicit input from your staff on their needs. Technology coordinators should collaborate with teachers to implement technologies that improve student learning (Robinson, 2022). A TC should not simply role out new technology and then not provide any support that goes with it. It should be a collaborative effort or a partnership for effective learning for students. Meaningful planning and collaboration make for productive learning. Thank you for sharing your insight!!
References:
Frazier, M., & Hearrington, D. (2017). The technology coordinator’s handbook (3rd ed.). International Society for Technology in Education.
Robinson, A. (2022, January 21). Effective use of technology in elementary school. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/effective-uses-technology-elementary-school
Thanks so much for the kind words!
DeleteOf all the roles I have as district Technology Coordinator/Central Office Administrator, PD on instuctional technology is probably my favorite, but also the one I actually have the least amount of time to properly perform. My biggest issue with technology PD is that I have to fight for time with testing, instruction, IEPs, etc... The few built in PDs get full of other requirements, my funding is not enough to pay for subs and I cannot get people to attend over the summer. I would love to build a thriving PD program and maybe one day I will be there.
ReplyDelete