Blog 6: Tech Training by Melissa Babecka

      The current state of the faculty's technology skills in the school where I am doing my volunteer experience hours depends largely on the age of the particular faculty member. It seems that the younger faculty members are more tech savvy than the older faculty members. The younger faculty members have grown up with the technology and had a lot of time to hone their skills while the older faculty members always feel as if they are having to play "catch-up" with the many different types of technologies. 

     The ways technology staff development is provided in my school is by various staff training days. One older math teacher made a comment to me that she felt that the training on the SMART boards and document cameras was rushed and lacking any "hands on" training time which she felt would be very beneficial to teachers like her who needed that time to feel more comfortable using the technology. She also stated to me that she did not have a lot of extra time to investigate new technologies on her own time. 

     Some strategies and approaches that support productive technology staff development could be to have tech training screencast videos available on the library media center's website that could teach new technologies to teachers and/or students and could be learned on their own time. Also, there could be tech training before or after school and during lunch time, basically anytime when it would be most convenient for the faculty to meet. If you can offer training time and a "free" pot-luck lunch by having the teachers sign up to bring a food/drink item while the librarian offers the the tech training, then you are going to have better attendance. 

     Some problems/barriers to productive technology staff development could be time constraints or low interest in the topic. 

     Some specific ways the school library media specialist can fulfill the duties of technology coach as outlined in the ISTE standards is by demonstrating and modeling new technologies, collaborating with faculty to evaluate new technologies, and to engage in continual learning of new technologies. School library media specialists can demonstrate and model new technologies by having in service training sessions and by posting tech training screencasts videos on the media center's website. School library media specialists can collaborate with faculty by planning co-teaching units using different technologies and by engaging with faculty members to find out what they are interested in learning. This can be done with simple online polls or email. The school library media specialists can engage in continual learning of new technologies by attending training and conferences. 

     I, as a library media specialist, would use the following ways to provide technology staff development to my teachers: tech training screencasts on the media center's website, web polls to find out what tech training the faculty is interested in learning about, and a once a month tech training pot-luck.