STaR Educator Preparation and Development

The Educator Preparation and Development is Key Area #2 of the Texas Long Range Plan for Technology Development. The goal of this key area is to develop staff, offer relevant training, create new learning with technology as a tool or venue for learning, and move into teaching courses online. At the state level, 74.2% of schools are at the developing tech level in the 2008-2009 school year. My school is also at the developing tech level, as is our district. Our campus reports Early Tech scores in EP4 and EP6, access to professional development and professional development for online learning. I believe that this is a mostly accurate, though sad representation. Professional development has focused primarily on the mechanics of administrative programs and basic access to web pages. There have been opportunities to learn Office software and Groupwise, but that is essentially all. Teachers are all mostly proficient in these types of programs at this point, or can find someone who is who can help them. What teachers do need, in fact, are grade level, real world examples of how to integrate technology into lessons delivered by teacher technology specialists who know kids, know curriculum, and who know the time demands placed on teachers. A consultant model might be a better model than a "teach the masses" approach. Instead, a consultant who requests teachers bring their lessons to team meetings and then helps them integrate technology into the lesson may be a better approach. Teachers then get the opportunity to share knowledge with each other. This level of collaboration is listed as "Target tech" the highest ranking. Using an expert teacher to develop new experts also increases the amount of actual integrated learning that is going on, thus impacting the "teaching and learning" key area.