Providing information about developing and delivering online professional development is an ever-increasing request I receive from staff at state departments of education, school districts, and other education providers. Reasons for this usually center around cost. The need to provide professional development to teachers exists or has even grown in demand as state and national policies require teachers to not only be highly qualified but to even be designated as highly effective. To become and stay effective requires ongoing professional development related to content, pedagogy, data use and other topics. School leaders, too, require continuous professional development to deal with the ever-growing demand for collecting and utilizing data for guiding school improvement efforts and for developing and nurturing rich professional learning communities—a difficult shift in the culture for many schools. In order to reach educators across a state with fewer available funds, many organizations are turning to online professional development.
The answer to whether you can use ubiquitous and common technologies to provide effective professional development is a resounding, “yes, you can!” I have some successful experiences doing this as have other organizations across the country. But the idea that if you just put something online you will change professional practice ignores the critical knowledge we have about how people learn, how we can support different learning preferences and needs, and how to best match learning needs with potential technologies. It’s not impossible, but it takes some planning and maybe broadening your understanding of what online professional development is or can be. Luckily, I do feel like we have reached a place where we can provide effective online professional development. The best part is that what you consider online professional development may be different from what I envision, and both may be completely different 3, 5, or especially 10 years from now, yet there are fundamental decisions you can make and steps you can take to effectively provide professional learning experiences regardless of the tools we have available to do so. Any online professional development effort can both be effective and meet the needs of the educators we work with.
Nature of the Content
The book walks through the steps of a planning and implementation. It combines what we know about designing effective professional development—regardless of delivery method—and what resources you may have available to deliver it online.
The purpose is to get readers to consider questions to ask when embarking on the decision to provide online professional development. These questions include the following:
Why do we really need online PD?
What is the total cost of ownership of our online PD system?
Who is our potential audience and what do they need?
What resources do I need to offer online PD? What resources do I have?
What tools can I use to provide online PD?
How do I design effective online PD?
How will I know my online PD has been effective?
You can help!
The new breed of online professional development relies on the new powerful tools we have to share and collaborate. You can share in the development of the book in two ways.
1: Help name the book
A name really is a name, especially when it comes to selling a new book. Help me out. My only preference is that it contain the phrase "online professional development."
Online Professional Development: Making it Work for You
Answering Questions about Online Professional Development
Online Professional Development: From Vision to Reality
The winner will be announced September 5, 2010.
2: Nominate Outstanding Programs
I'm interviewing experts from around the country (and beyond) about their experiences developing and delivering online professional development. I'm asking them for recommendations, but you can make them to.
