Due to the powers of Facebook, I was able to get nine people to complete my survey. There where four high school teachers, one middle school teacher, and four elementary school teachers. The purpose of this survey was to get a better idea of teachers' comfort level with different hardware, software, and Web 2.0 Tools, how to increase teachers' comfort level, to see what teachers are willing to do to help spread the knowledge of technology, and finally to see what they expect out of professional development. A needs assessment is key to the start of any project in order to help all staff members feels included, to narrow the focus of the goal, and to see what the attitude of the teachers are about the goal (Meltzer, 2012).
The results of the survey are as follows.
Comfort level with hardware was pretty consistent across grade levels. The majority of teachers surveyed stated that they were comfortable with using hardware such as a projector, laptop, smart phone, and digital camera. The only variation was with the use of an Interactive Response System. High school teachers were significantly more comfortable than elementary teachers. Similar results were shown for software, with the majority of teachers being comfortable. However, when it came to Web 2.0 Tools, there was a large fluctuation in comfort levels across the board. The middle school teacher that was surveyed was considered comfortable with all Web 2.0 Tools. However the high school and elementary school teachers were really only comfortable with using emails and online videos. For more than half of the tools inquired about, zero elementary teachers stated they were comfortable using them, and only one high school teacher stated they were comfortable. This leads me to believe that if this was my staff that I was providing professional development to that our goal would need to be to improve understanding and ability to use Web 2.0 Tools in the classroom.
When it came to improving the comfort level of technology, the preference varied by person. This tells me that several different options should be available to teachers in order to best integrate technology practices into their classroom. According to the survey, improving on hardware and software, observing someone using the technology was the biggest preference. When it came to Web 2.0 tools, teachers still want to be able to observe the technology being used, but they also want to be involved with both big group instruction, and one on one instruction.
An important factor to increasing the technology use in a school is to be able to share that it is working. All of the teachers surveyed said that they would be willing to share their knowledge of different forms of technology, and most said they would take part in modeling the technology and becoming a peer trainer. Creating training materials is something that only one of the surveyed teachers agreed to.
The last two questions to my survey were regarding professional development expectations. When asked what the most important thing to consider when planning professional development, the majority of the responses were along the lines of making sure that it was relevant to teachers and that they are interactive.
"Make sure it applies to the teachers attending. Don't give PD for something that teachers don't have in their classrooms."
"Making sure that it is relevant to the teachers and something that they actually can use in their daily classes."
"To provide time for participants to experiment with what they are being trained in, and model for them how you would use the tools in the classroom with students."
"Making it user friendly, not having the training as just a lecture."
The step of surveying staff is essential, and I believe that if this was given to an entire staff it would certainly help to better achieve the goal of increasing the proper use of technology in the classroom. It would be important to ensure that the level of training needed is given so that participants do not frustrated or discouraged (Meltzer, 2012).
References
Meltzer, S. T. (2012). Step-by-step Professional Development in Technology. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education, Inc.
References
Meltzer, S. T. (2012). Step-by-step Professional Development in Technology. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education, Inc.
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