After reading Chapter 5 in the book Web 2.0 New Tools, New Schools I realized just how inefficient our professional development courses are for new and practicing teachers. In fact, many of these courses are conducted in large blocks of time without adequate feedback after the session thus promoting teachers to forget the material very quickly. Second, the book mentioned that many times teachers in professional development do not receive the opportunity to practice what they are learning and therefore they never master the subject and rarely use it in their classroom. Requiring teacher participation in new technologies like blogs, wikis, and podcasts in professional development sessions helps build confidence in teachers when it comes down to teaching with technology.
I truly believe that online learning communities can be enacted for professional development and benefit teachers. This can be accomplished through the implementation of several guidelines to make the most of the opportunity. These include establishing a regular time for interaction, sending agendas to members before a discussion to keep it on track, build and maintain an archive where documents can be found and utilized over time, and set formal rules for communication and technology use. Administrators play a critical role in implementing these procedures in professional development.