Professional Development

                I believe professional development is essential to my career as an educator. I think the implementation of Professional Learning Communities in schools is a very effective approach to professional development if it is done correctly. This opportunity allows for an open discussion and teachers are able to ask questions and collaborate about technology and other topics of interest in their particular school district.

                To keep up to date in my personal knowledge of technology I think it is important to: attend conferences, collaborate with other teachers, be aware of new technology and be willing to explore it, and to read professional blogs. Conferences are vital to my growth as an educator. They will broaden my knowledge over specific topics regarding technology in education. Conferences are a very practical way of “getting my hands dirty” while learning about technology and education. I also believe collaboration with other teachers is essential. There are many effective teachers out in schools that are reaching kids because of their use of technology in the classroom. This class has taught me to try new things in technology and to find new ways to implement them into my classroom. I will continue to explore the state of the art technology in order to reach all of the students in my classroom.

                I have found several websites to help stay current in my own professional development. Educator Resources http://www.refseek.com/directory/teacher_resources.html is a fantastic website with resources for teachers for use in the classroom and for professional development.

 I have a passion for educating students with special needs 4teachers has some very up to date technological resources to aide students with special needs. http://4teachers.org/profdev/.

Staff Development for Educators has some great resources for schools and for individual teachers. SDE also has customized webinars for teachers to attend online. I feel like this website will be extremely beneficial for me in the near future. http://www.sde.com/index.asp.

I have included several other sites that I hope to utilize more this summer. There are many resources for professional development once you start looking!

http://webserver3.ascd.org/ossd/planning_definitions.html

http://www.learningforward.org/index.cfm

http://www.360-edu.com/professional_development.php

http://www.learner.org/