Although learning online is not a new concept, it is becoming increasingly ubiquitous. The debate about online learning has been heated, with critics raising concerns about issues of quality, resource accessibility, and effective student engagement; but technology champions enthusiastically tout benefits such as personalized, customizable, and just-in-time learning.
As the leading universities scramble to figure out their own online learning strategies, providers of professional development in education are increasing their online offerings. In a fast-changing world, of course no one wants to be left behind. But can online learning truly transform professional development and provide the rich learning experiences that educators need?
Maybe.
In a virtual environment, professional development can take many forms, from webinars to virtual conferences to real-time global conversations about current topics.
"Teachers are realizing the professional development they are being given in their district just isn't meeting their needs, so they're seeking out other sources," says Steven Anderson, director of instructional technology for Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools in North Carolina. "Twitter chats, Nings, conferences, webinars—everything from lurking on Twitter to taking part in global educational conferences and everything in between."
Who is engaging in online professional development in its many forms and how are users tapping into social networks to customize their own learning?
Who's Online?
Is online professional development just for a select few? It depends on who you ask.
A recent ED Pulse poll in the July 5, 2012, ASCD SmartBrief, a daily e-mail roundup of education news, asked its readers if they preferred "face-to-face professional development or online/workshops of the same length."
Surprisingly, nearly 62 percent of more than 1,000 respondents said they "greatly prefer" face-to-face professional development, while another 17 percent said they "somewhat" prefer it. Of the roughly 16 percent of respondents who said they preferred online webinars/workshops, only about 7 percent said they "greatly prefer" online over face-to-face professional development.
Without other data, it's hard to determine whether it's the nature of webinars themselves, the attraction of in-person speakers, or even the level of comfort with technology or the age of respondents that produced those survey results. But the tech-savvy are skeptical.
"If I were to do the same exact survey on Twitter, my guess is that you would see the exact opposite of your results there," Anderson says. "I like face-to-face, but I—and many people like me—prefer to do the learning online, virtually, and have the opportunity to revisit it over and over and be allowed to take part in the professional development on our time."
Anderson, already a social media maven in the education world, with nearly 48,000 followers on his Twitter feed, uploads a number of his webinars through SimpleK12.com's Teacher Learning Community, which bills itself as an online global learning community offering self-paced training.
Many of SimpleK12's offerings pertain to using technology in schools. In addition, it offers programs and webinars related to current educator needs, such as how to align assessments with the Common Core State Standards. SimpleK12's "learning programs," which are more extensive courses, offer administrators training on soft skills, such as leadership, communication, and emotional management.
A popular assumption is that younger educators entering the teaching pipeline would prefer to use digital tools to access personalized professional development. But these digital natives may lack the technological chops often attributed to them by virtue of their age, according to Sarah Meltzer, an assistant professor in Western Carolina University's School of Teaching and Learning and author of Step-by-Step Professional Development in Technology.
"Surprisingly, many of them are not comfortable with learning through technology such as Blackboard or using online discussion groups," Meltzer says. "Some of this discomfort comes from learning style, and some comes from a lack of experience during their K–12 years. Many believe all first-year teachers are [technologically] proficient, and this is definitely not the case."
Meltzer believes that the current push for technology infusion in education will help future waves of aspiring teachers increase their technology proficiency, but she points out that research shows that systematic change takes three to five years to take effect.
"It will take more time than people realize," Meltzer says. Nonetheless, it still makes sense to prepare teachers to know how to use web technologies, resources, and social media, because the use of digital technology will only continue growing.
Richard Lange, an adjunct professor at National-Louis University and the director of student teaching and professional development at Amundsen High School in Chicago, Ill., has encouraged his graduate students and student teachers to use web 2.0 tools to look for teaching jobs and enhance their resumes and portfolios with a list of tech skills that include using social media to extend their learning, building professional learning networks, and solving challenges in their classroom and instruction.
Although most of Lange's professional development with his 20 student teachers this year has been face-to-face work, Lange has his students sign up to the ASCD EDge® social networking platform, which is composed of diverse educators from the United States and other countries.
One of Lange's students, now a second-year teacher in a Chicago charter school, uploaded dozens of blog posts on his ASCD EDge blog and culled ideas from readers' responses to his articles. "He took those ideas and was able to use them in his classroom," Lange says.
Lange also encourages students to submit articles for publication on the Mentoring Leadership & Resource Network website and has coauthored articles with students on various topics.
Tapping into Social Networks
A lot of teachers out there may be using online tools for their classrooms or their own learning, but they are still a minority in any given school, says Jason Bedell, the technology coordinator for Lakehurst School District in Ocean County, N.J.
Bedell, who explains in his Tech for Teachers column in the ASCD Express e-newsletter how to integrate learning management systems and other tech tools into classroom practice, says that although teachers may be slow to adopt technology, he has found that they are often inspired by seeing how other practitioners use the tools with their students.
Bedell, who subscribes to more than 300 blogs on his Google Reader, says that teacher blogs are an excellent way to gain a detailed or deeper understanding of classroom practice, tools, and education issues that get mentioned in brief social network conversations. Blogs and Twitter accounts often go hand in hand, Bedell says. For example, teachers can check out Richard Byrne's www.freetech4teachers.com site to get a variety of tech-oriented instructional ideas, and then they can start interacting with Byrne at @rmbyrne on Twitter, Bedell suggests.
"Social networks are becoming extremely popular as ways to both consume and share ideas. Twitter is probably the most popular and conducive for this, but groups on LinkedIn and Facebook are also useful," Bedell adds.
Professional Development for the Common Core
Using web technology to share pertinent information with large numbers of educators makes sense when schools are confronting major shifts, like the arrival of the Common Core State Standards, which have been adopted by most states as a catalyst for ratcheting up student achievement.
With the goal of reaching school administrators and teachers grappling with implementing Common Core standards, ASCD recently unveiled its free EduCore™ professional development tool to give middle school and high school educators tools to infuse the Common Core State Standards into their literacy and math practices. Its development was financed by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
EduCore's combination of videos, text documents, and other web-based resources allows teachers to go back and review, which is one of the key benefits of online learning, says Sherida Britt, the professional development director at ASCD who led the EduCore project.
"The online aspect of EduCore is a convenient way for educators to access free, online resources aligned to the common core. The website is primed for on-the-go learning, as teachers can pull it up on their smartphone, iPad, or any other mobile device," Britt adds.
The site relies on research-based math resources, designed by the MARS Shell Centre at the University of Nottingham in Great Britain, and is intended to increase the use of formative assessments in the math classroom. Literacy tools, designed by the Literacy Design Collaborative, provide a template task bank that content-area teachers can use and adapt to meet the literacy standards.
"Each resource comes with comprehensive explanations about what teachers should do before, during, and after the lessons," Britt says.
Who Will Be the Judge?
Online professional development works best when the information and training offered meet a teacher's identified needs, experts say.
Meltzer, whose work focuses on professional development in technology use in the classroom, advises that online professional development can be successful when the training is targeted.
"Once a teacher has participated in an initial training to learn a specific software program or skill and the follow-up/support system is in place, the opportunity for a teacher to view a video or work through an online professional development training can be an effective piece in the professional development plan," Meltzer explains.
Having such online resources available to suit a teacher's particular need and schedule is great, but teachers won't use it if they don't need it, Meltzer adds.
