Grauel, Mary
LS 521, Sp 02
4/22/02
Joiner, Lottie L.(2002, January). The Connected teacher anywhere, anytime learning meets professional development. Electronic School. Retrieved 4/19/02, from http://electronic-school.com/2002/01/0102f1.html
The author, Lottie L. Joiner, looks at professional development offered online for teachers. In the article, Ms Joiner states that "fewer than 40% of teachers feel they were prepared to implement curriculum and meet performance standards". Online professional development could help teachers become better prepared. The advantages to online professional development is it is flexible, accessible, convenient, cost effective, and good for isolated areas and for subject areas with a low number of teachers. The disadvantages are you can have technical difficulties, the isolation and lack of interpersonal communication, the quality of delivery, and usefulness to the target group. Online instruction can be offered in many ways through video broadcasting, self-paced lessons, video conferencing, and online learning communities. Regardless of how it is offered, the most important factor is that it meets the needs of the teachers involved and that what they learn can be used immediately by them in their classrooms. Basically, online professional development is just one tool. It needs to be a quality offering like any other professional development learning.
I enjoyed this article but then again it was preaching to the
choir. Anytime I have to sit through professional development
I want it to be immediately useful to me. The best is something
you can use as is the next day. I also want it to meet my current
needs and be hands on. Don't just show me how to do something,
let me try it out right then or I will forget. I also still need
a paper. I'm good at following directions after I've seen something
work once. I like it to also be flexible. Let me pick and choose
from a variety of things based on my needs. I hate sitting through
how to teach 2-digit division when I am the librarian. Instead,
show me how to help the math teachers incorporate technology into
the curriculum. I also liked that this article wasn't just one
long advertisement for the author's next book or product. She
didn't promote a particular product or service but talked about
professional development in general. She also found examples to
support her article and viewpoints from across the US. She had
comments from teachers, principals, and staff administrators from
many areas, large and small. Overall, this was a very readable
article.