Technology Integration

• Principal Connections
• K-12 Total Cost of Ownership Web-Based Calculator

Online Professional Development

• Comprehensive Literacy Program
• Alabama Leadership Series
• eCoaching

Instructional Design

• Data-Based Decision Making: Resources for Educators
• Building Teachers: A Constructivist Approach to Introducing EducationCD-ROM

Research and Evaluation

• Toward an Effective Use of Technology in Education
• Action Research training for West Virginia Technology Integration Specialists

Facilitation

• Assessment Conference
• Webcast series for the Appalachia Regional Comprehensive Center

Online Professional Development: Alabama Leadership Series

Purpose: The intent of this project was to deliver online professional development to teams of school leaders in schools from across the state of Alabama. The original project, conducted in 2006-2007 piloted the delivery method. Due to the project's success led to the delivery of two courses projected to reach 800 educators across the state between 2009-2011.

Audience: The audience for this online professional development consists of school leadership teams including lead teachers, principals, and others holding leadership certification from the Alabama State Department of Education.

My Role: In the initial project, my role was to customize the content of an existing course to the needs of the Alabama State Department of Education, to train the five course facilitators, and to manage the yearlong delivery of the course.

In the follow-up project, I customized an additional course to be delivered along with the first. I developed facilitator training and delivered it online via webconferencing software. I also added components to guide the facilitators and support record keeping to encourage participants to complete the course successfully and ensure their participation was documented accurately so they could receive credit.

Challenges: The major challenge was to deliver the course in a cost-effective manner to leadership teams from schools across the state. Providing access to the training to schools from every region of the state, especially those in rural areas that might not normally have access to the training was critical. I also had to train course facilitators who managed five “classes” of school leadership teams from across the state. These facilitators were five retired principals or superintendents, some with very little technology experience.

For the 2009-2011 offering, the Department wanted to offer the course to the widest number of persons possible seeking recertification of their leadership certification. These included both current and retired educators, in or out of Alabama. A challenge was that the Department sought volunteers to facilitate the courses to reduce the overall cost of delivery.

Strategies: The courses were built around existing corporate instructional design standards and utilized features and activity formats common to other courses previously developed. In order to increase the relevance of the first course to educators in Alabama, I suggested the inclusion of Alabama-specific content. The introduction of the course presented a description of how the course aligned with the Alabama Standards for Effective Professional Development.

Due to my suggestion, the Alabama State Department of Education also arranged to interview successful principals from across the state. These principals, known as “Torchbearer Principals,” led high-achieving schools in high-poverty, and high-minority communities. They were better able to share their Alabama-specific experiences using the same language of standards and expectations that participants in the course could relate to. In addition, the Department was able to videotape a welcome message from state superintendent, Dr. Joe Morton. This brief welcome emphasized the importance of the pilot and provided a source of encouragement to the participants.

In order to train the course facilitators, I created a two-day orientation with my colleague Dr. Jackie Walsh. Dr. Walsh, an expert trainer in face-to-face settings, and I collaborated to develop or modify successful face-to-face activities for an online setting and then modeled them with the course facilitators. We simulated the online experience in a lab setting over a period of two days-covering the course content, the online environment, and supporting online interaction-and then provided support, as needed, from a distance. As it turned out, due to the supports built into the course, the facilitators required very little support.

In order to prepare volunteer facilitators, I added additional supports to the courses, including an online orientation for all participants. Embedded throughout the courses are guidelines for facilitators, including a separate guide for facilitating each activity. I modified the face-to-face orientation to a one-hour online webconference to be delivered to the volunteer facilitators as they signed up. The orientation was archived in Flash and available for review at any time by facilitators. The final support included an online interactive Activity Review Checklist that participants can use to record the completion of each activity.

Outcomes: The success of the initial Alabama Leadership Academy in 2007 encouraged the Alabama State Department of Education to seek additional online professional development for the educators they serve. The facilitated cohort model also boasted an exemplary 96% completion rate.