Research has shown that effective professional development is intensive, on-going, and integrated into teachers’ daily work. What model of PD is best? Find support and ideas to move from skill-based trainings with little follow-up to establishing a true culture of inquiry that supports anytime learning and differentiation. To help assess your current technology use and chart a course toward increased technology implementation, consult the EdTech Locator.

Related Resources

2Learn

This website includes a wide array of tools for teachers to use with students, and for professional development teachers to use with teachers. Plan projects online and explore all the different options for online PD.

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CoSN Small District Technology Leadership Wiki

The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) is a voice for K-12 education leaders who use technology strategically to improve teaching and learning. The objective of this wiki is to provide a space for collaborative work around topics regarding effective planning for and use and implementation of technology.

EdTech Locator - PD Coordinators

Use the EdTech Locator to identify where you, your school, or district is located on a continuum of technology integration. Map a course to deepen your technology integration to improve the achievement of all students. In addition, use CITEd's Teacher Self Assessment to help identify your placement on the Ed Tech Locator.

CITEd

Educational Technology

Educational Technology provides news, techniques, and theories of effective use of technology in education for use and consideration when implementing professional development.

How To Get Teachers To Attend Tech Training

In this resource you will discover ways to make your tech training productive, personalized, and rewarding for teachers.

techLEARNING.com

Information Technology Making a Difference in Children's Lives: An Issue Brief for Leaders for Children

This Issue Brief urges groups working on children's issues to include technology planks in their platforms and policy agendas. In addition to working for equitable access to digital tools for underserved children, the report encourages leaders of children to lobby for changes in public programs serving children to make them more effective, efficient and accessible by incorporating information and communications technology.

Library of Congress Puts Millions of Titles Online

Since the 1990s, the Library of Congress has worked to digitize content, making its holdings available to the millions of people unable to visit the library in person. Today the library has over 14 million of its titles available for free through its Web site. The digitization efforts include translating works into other languages and connecting the information of cultures around the world

Literacy - Teacher to Teacher

The annual Teacher to Teacher summer workshops sponsored by the U.S.Department of Education have become popular places for teachers to pick up lesson ideas and teaching strategies from accomplished colleagues (and share some of their own). This page collects the 2007 presentations and handouts from literacy workshop sessions around the USA. Materials are provided on teaching reading, comprehension, vocabulary and writing across the curriculum, working with struggling adolescent readers, narrative writing, expository compositions, persuasive writing, reading and writing in math and science and with limited English proficient students, plus literature and the arts. Browse dozens of articles and click anything of interest to read a summary. Middle grades teachers and literacy coaches will want to examine the several presentations on unlocking the mysteries of informational text.

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McREL Online Learning Communities

MCREL offers to help you create professional learning communities in your school or district. This is not a free service.

Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning

Online Professional Development: Get the Facts

This list of important questions relating to online professional development (PD) invites users to assess their own needs and decide for themselves if online PD is right for them. It also includes a buyer's checklist for online PD systems and a "Who's Who" of online PD providers.

techLEARNING.com

Pedagogy in Practice

Pedagogy in Practice offers video case studies in math, video cases in science, and strategies. See links to professional content area standards in practice resources.

Programs Aim to Stop Cyber Bullying

Learn more about the effects of cyber bullying on today’s students, and what steps schools are taking to address the problem.

Providing Professional Development for Effective Technology Use

Lack of professional development for technology use is one of the most serious obstacles to fully integrating technology into the curriculum. But traditional sit-and-get training sessions or one-time-only workshops have not been effective in making teachers comfortable with using technology or adept at integrating it into their lesson plans. This article discusses goals, action plans, pitfalls, viewpoints, cases, and other critical information for creating a successful professional development program around technology in the classroom.

NCREL

School Tube

SchoolTube is for educators who want to share approved videos nationwide; empower students and encourage creativity; join recognized leaders in video broadcasting; access lesson plans and helpful classroom information, and encourage students to compete in moderated competitions. SchoolTube puts a special emphasis on student-made products, shares tips on unblocking SchoolTube on your school's network, and provides instructions on how to share videos from your own school.

Social Media’s Power to Promote Assistive and Learning Technologies

Discover how social media works, learn about the benefits to using social media in assistive and learning technologies, and explore barriers to social media practices in this brief from the National Center for Technology Innovation.

Software Industry Promotes Goals for School Technology

A software-industry group has unrolled a project to help education and business better define the role of technology in 21st-century education. The Vision K-20 Initiative is offering school districts an online survey to measure their progress toward goals that the Software & Information Industry Association has established with feedback from several national education organizations.

Stop Bullying Now!

Utilize this resource’s archive of expert advice on bully prevention and intervention techniques to find out how you can successfully implement an anti-bullying agenda.

Texas Assistive Technology Network AT Modules

Assistive Technology in Texas Schools Series Each module in the Assistive Technology in Texas Schools Series was designed for use by regional education service center and district staff responsible for assistive technology (AT) capacity-building in the state of Texas. The modules can be used to build knowledge and skills in AT service delivery at various levels throughout the state education system. The content of each module directly supports the legal mandate of IDEA’97 that requires that AT devices and services be provided to a student with disabilities if required as a part of the student’s Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). These modules are aplicable to every state, not just Texas.

Texas Assistive Technology Network (TATN)

Universal Design for Learning: Improved Access for All

This article discusses the basic principles of universal design for learning (UDL) and how to create a UDL environment in the classroom. This is also a good resource to provide parents with background information on UDL. 

Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation