If twenty-first Century schools need twenty-first century technology (Prensky, 2006) then, they also need twenty-first century teachers; teachers who cooperate with each other and work towards their own knowledge construction. Teachers are unsure about how to integrate technology in their lesson plans and tend to use it as a tool rather than an instructional enhancer. I wonder how technology integration would be affected if a select group of technology strong teachers are trained as “teacher techs” or “technology coaches.”
There is a definitive consensus that existing professional development programs need to be revised. Teachers reported that they attend professional development workshops and receive the necessary renewal credits, but the content of the workshops was not meeting their professional technology needs (Bradshaw, 2002). I am interested in an action research plan that investigates the benefits of a teacher technology coach program and whether this proposed program could be an effective professional development approach to educating teachers about technology integration and project-based learning.
I agree that we need to cooperate and thereby cut down on our workload. Planning together, using each others tried and true processes, co-teaching, trading off, all these things are helpful. If we "throw in" some technology we would reduce our work load even more! There are some powerful tools available--let's use them!
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