For those of you who offer professional development classes for teachers in your district you know how frustrating it can be when nobody shows up for a training or when people show up but are not really paying attention. The unfortunate piece in conducting teacher training is that they almost always have to happen before or after school. Before school leaves little time to learn and practice new skills. Teachers are understandably preoccupied with thinking about their class that will start in 30 minutes. After school training is not much better. During this time teachers are usually dead dog tired or would like to be attending to the commitments of their personal lives rather than listening to you talk about the latest tech tool.
However this year I think I tackled this professional development dilemma and succeeded in delivering quality professional development to a sizeable number of teachers. This year I taught 23 technology classes and had almost 100 people attend each one of those classes. Impossible you say? I would have thought the same nine months ago but with a little help from Moodle it did happen.
Teachers have lives too and we cannot expect them to devote 24/7 to school matters. My wife is a teacher so I know this first hand. Personal lives, family, and other “stuff” just get in the way. For me to expect teachers to regularly attend weekly after school trainings is not realistic. So instead of asking teachers to modify their schedule for me I modified my delivery and schedule for them. I created 23 lessons using Moodle as the tool. And with a little hype, a little cheerleading, some cool incentive prizes, and with some key building supporters I was able to have 90+ teachers finish all 23 activities.
The name of my project was 23 Things. I borrowed the name, the idea, and the Web 2.0 theme for all the lessons from PLCMC Learning 2.0 program. I decided to use Moodle as the delivery mechanism rather than a blog or wiki because it allowed for a controlled online environment and also allowed me to track who was working and who wasn’t. A new “thing” was presented each week followed by a simple assignment or discussion question. Sometimes it took 5 minutes to complete, sometimes half an hour. Some teachers worked independently, some worked in groups. After school, weekends, prep times – teachers worked when they wanted to work. They weren’t tied to any specific date, time, or place. They could even take a break from 23 Things and get caught up when they wanted. The only time limit was that they had to finish by June 6th to be eligible for a prize. According to my Google form that is tracking participants there are 90+ people who have finished – awesome!
What’s Next?
Next time I do 23 Things, or something similar, it will be more structured. I would focus more on a particular theme like digital storytelling or the new NETS for teachers. I will be the first to admit that at times I had no idea what I was doing during 23 Things. Because Web 2.0 was such a broad topic it occasionally felt random. However, when I think about it that was ok. This was my first attempt at online learning so it was a learning experience for me as much as it was for the teachers. Besides teachers just needed some time to explore and have fun.
But no matter what the topic or focus I think the success of 23 Things demonstrates the power and effectiveness of offering professional development online. If I had hosted 23 Things as an after school class I would never have had almost 100 people attend each one of those classes. But by putting the classes online I did just that – 23 classes, 90+ people attending each class – it just didn’t happen at 3:30 every Thursday.
Links:
http://moodle.redmond.k12.or.us – click on Redmond School District then click on 23 Things.
