LTC Provides Teacher Professional Development on Technology Tools - January 21, 2011

Learning Technology Center coordinators Karen French and Ken Tothero traveled to Connecticut twice last fall, providing professional development on the use of technology to support world language learning and the teaching of bilingual curricula. Each two-day workshop featured extensive hands-on exploration of a wide variety of equipment, software, and online learning tools for teachers at two schools in Connecticut with dual-language immersion programs in Spanish and English.

The LTC developed an online environment specifically for the workshops and the schools’ goals to integrate innovative technology use into instruction. EVIDA (Espacio Virtual de Aprendizaje) is based on the Elgg social networking platform and will allow teachers and their students to create and share many types of content, participate on discussion boards, and geotag photo collections. Its interface is designed for young Spanish language learners and includes icons for accents.

The workshops covered the use of interactive whiteboards, classroom response systems, VoiceThread, Webspiration, and laptop videoconferencing with Apple iChat. The teachers were particularly excited about iChat and will use it to collaborate, plan technology activities, and get technical help from LTC staff. The teachers also learned about educational technology standards and the assessment of technology-based activities. During the final workshop sessions, the teachers began to design learning activities that they will use with their students.

The workshops are part of the LTC’s partnership with LEARN, a Connecticut regional education service center. The project is funded by the Connecticut Department of Education as part of an Educational Technology Entitlement Grant authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Karen and Ken will follow up the workshops with six monthly online sessions this spring, using iChat video conferencing. The teachers will reflect on their use of the new strategies and technologies, sharing successes, improving methods, and planning new activities.

—Laurie Caldwell, LTC Communications Coordinator

Related Sites:

• LEARN Website
• Elgg Website