Chapter 5- Web 2.0 Professional Development

Staff training and development for technology is definitely challenging.  When you consider the amount of time spent in the classroom and additional assignments in a college class, how do you incorporate that into a school with all teachers when everyone is already working all day every day?  It can’t be taught at an afterschool meeting! 

Classroom communities along with significant district and building support are a necessity.  Commitment and organized efforts need to happen.  Technology changes so quickly, that a learning community for sharing ideas and best practices along with the latest application information would be a great resource for all educators.

A podcast that I found on a business education topic was one from Microsoft on Office Project 2007.  It was a good overview with a presentation and added some advanced tips and tricks for using the program.  The power point presentation was well done and helped make the steps to Office Project more logical.

I had no idea that Itunes had so many podcasts!  They were entertaining, but the ones I chose to listen to were on different subjects than education.

Podcasts for business education

There are so many interesting podcasts available that are extremely informative.  In particular I found one at a website, EPN, educational podcast network.  The podcast discussed technology in the classroom and how administrators should engage teachers and counselors.  It cited that students spend an average of 7 hours a day with various types of entertainment media and that incorporating that in the classroom is essential.  It also described the high school student generation as digital natives which is a term I had not heard before reading the text for the class!  Now it’s becoming more common.

In reading chapter 4, it was enlightening to learn that there are successful technology experts like Bill and Melinda Gates that are giving their time to develop best practices and 21^st Century skills for students.  Pedagogy and technology must find a balance.

Chapter 4 gave great examples of using technology in all of the different content areas such as Geography, Science, English, and many others.  It is also interesting to look at each Web 2.0 tool and think about what it can replace like, “What does Flickr do that a news clip does not?”