The major professional development program I have been focusing on this year is 21 Things. Three librarians, including me, and one teacher worked together to create a wiki that would lead our staff through 21 technology tasks. We chose the tasks based on needs we saw in our staff and tools we have learned about through conferences and online resources. It is geared toward a classroom teacher, but we have alternate assignments so that administrators and staff can also participate. We have already received a great response and we are 5 things into the 21. We have had almost 200 teachers and staff register for the course. There is a group from each school in our district and the best part, almost every group is being facilitated by a librarian. I am so proud of our librarians for stepping up to do this even when some of them are not very comfortable with technology. I believe this has gone a long way in illustrating our value and putting all of us in the position of being a go to person for technology.
You can view our wiki here. Feel free to take this idea and adapt it for your own staff. If you do please let me know how it goes.
Next year we are already thinking about a program specifically for administrators. Learning new things can be intimidating for this group because it is hard to show this weakness in front of your staff. We think a program created just for them might be the answer.
What types of professional development programs are you a part of? Do you think this is a responsibility of the librarian?
Don't forget to come to our next TL Virtual Cafe session with the wonderful, Jennifer LaGarde.
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