Overall, my vision for ICT related Pro-D is that I might be able to get a group of teachers together that are wanting to improve their skills or explore a specific area of interest of ICT in education. As a teacher librarian I feel my role could be to facilitate this group and use some of my library time to help teachers trouble shoot technical problems as they work through the learning process. I would also be able to use some of my prep time for finding seeds of information to use as jumping off points or finding additional information on topics that are relevant to where the group is heading. Group members would need to commit to meeting on a regular basis throughout the year. I think that the ideal meeting schedule to keep things moving and productive would be to meet once or twice a month, this way skills and ideas will be built upon and not forgotten about between sessions. Re-occuring pro-d also allows for the group to better troubleshoot each other’s technical problems and to act as a support network.
Possible Areas of Pro-d Exploration:
- Personal Learning Networks
- 21st Century Learning and Skills
- Connecting teachers using ICT
- Connecting students to the wider world through ICT
- Connecting students to wider audiences through ICT
- Assistive technology for students with special learning needs
- Basic program navigation
- Teacher Organization using ICT
- Gain inspiration and rejuvinate passion for teaching through ICT (i.e.. view inspirational TEDtalk…)
- Discuss and implement strategies for improving ICT at our school
- Multiliteracies and multimodality
- Visual literacy and it’s connection to ICT
- Fostering creativity with ICT
Some Possible Resources for Pro-D Workshops:
- Coursera: http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/coursera-announces-professional-development-courses-facilitate-lifelong-learning-teachers-1784940.htm The group or some of it’s members might choose to pursue a course on Coursera (or any other open learning sites) and share their learning with the group.
- Core 10 Trends: http://www.core-ed.org/thought-leadership/ten-trends The group might decide to explore one trend per session. Or choose one or two to explore in depth.
- Core 10 Edtalks: http://edtalks.org/channel/modern-learning-environments
- Talks: -Ted: http://www.ted.com/talks –http://tedxvictoria.com/about/get-involved/
- Code.org: http://www.code.org