Mark's+Annotated

Topic: Using blogging as a tool to further teacher professional development in the use of technology and professional growth in general.

Brown, K. (2004). Technology: Building interaction. TechTrends: Linking Research & Practice to Improve Learning, 48(5), 36-38.

This article is a summary of research – good follow-up articles to chase down! Article starts by making case that traditional staff development was not very interactive: learners were shown techniques and idea by and expert. Author continues by contrasting traditional delivery and technology use. Research article referenced by Dawson and rakes 2003 that showed little application of knowledge by teachers without leadership of principal. One of the key finding is that interaction is what drives real learning. If technology can be set up to support this, students report higher success in learning. Another worthy goal is simulating real world activities. Courseware can support the many representations of knowledge and allow learners to develop new knowledge though it. One research article showed that a fully online simulation outperformed hybrids and face to face designs. The value and necessity of collaboration is stated over and over again. Although the focs was more on course design, the lessons for collaboration for building knowledge are still worth noting for my study.

Carneiro, R. (2006). Motivating school teachers to learn: Can ICT add value? European Journal of Education, 41(3/4), 415-435.

Study Centered on a graduate Class at CAtholic University of Portugal 143 teachers. Although focused on factors that determine success for teachers taking an online class, there is ample research that applies - self regulation, motivation and particularly the importance of teacher confidence and competence in the success of implementation. There is also a significant point made that teacher advancement in technology is dependent more on the philosophy of the teacher than the skill at higher levels of adoption and implementation. One of the findings was that as time went on in the course, teacher attitudes about chat, emails and forums improved somewhat as they became more familiar with them, though not as much gain as I would have expected. the importance of face to face in the group still stayed as high as the other tools. An important survey question was that 90% of the teachers said that Technology was a natural learning environment. One of the lessons was instant tools like email and chat are at first preferred, while forums (and therefore a tool like blogs) takes more time to develop an appreciation for, since there is a delay in the building of knowledge.

Chalmers, L., & Keown, P. (2006). Communities of practice and professional development. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 25(2), 139-156.

The article starts of with the premise that lifelong learning in all fields has become prevalent and necessary. Authors make the case that there is a difference between in-service sessions and professional development in both their intent and more importantly their structure. In-service will be by it’s nature face to face and directed. Professional development has a greater abilty to allow learners time to reflect, tailor and grow. Authors quote a Bell and Gilbert study in which the social interaction aspect of teacher development is important and powerful. Although their paper is more about Dl as a vehicle to implement communities of practice, some of this same issues apply - quality of conversation, relevance and ownership, self reflection and examination. Many PD opportunities are seen by teachers as passive and detached from their professional needs. Quotes a study: SCHLAGER, M. and FUSCO, J. (2003) Teacher professional development, technology, and communities of practice: Are we putting the cart before the horse? The Information Society, 19, 203–220. In which the importance of social interaction as a means for learning is clearly needed. A lot of this relates to the research in “The teaching Gap”, which I think woul dbe a good addition to my list for reference. Authors make the case that extended reflection and conversation are important elements of communities of practice, so online tools are a cost effective, powerful way to accomplish this. Nice reference to an online article: Knowing in Community:10 Critical Success Factors in Building Communities of Practice by Richard McDermott, Ph.D. Powerful groups require cooperation, spontaneity, and informality (power and power, references in the article) The authors set up an online professional development seminar that involved readings, community interaction and adjustment of teaching practice with reflection. There were size of the group issues - if the group gets too large, intimacy dissolves and participation drops off... Some also felt the open ended time commitment from asynchronous tools was difficult to manage

Cooner, T. S. (2004). Preparing for ICT enhanced practice learning opportunities in 2010--a speculative view. Social Work Education, 23(6), 731-744.

Even though this article is written for Social Work Education, the ideas of what technologies might be used for professional development in 2010 in education are still pertinent. The article uses a story and scenario based model for exploring the evolution of ICT in building professional learning. One of the interesting ideas explored is the importance of the semantic web and how it will change the way information is both attained and assessed. Interdsting idea that virtual 3d glasses with facila and body language features will expand the ability of virtual interfaces to create a real sens eof community. Not realy for this paper but maybe my fianl thesis? One of the ideas in the article is that future studets will be more IT literate, so this part doesn’t really help. There is a need to recognize that four features of the emerging internet: ubiquity due to price drops, semantic web, ubiquity due to size reduction, and wireless replacing cables is important to consider even now.

Davis, N. E., & Roblyer, M. D. (2005). Preparing teachers for the "Schools That Technology Built": Evaluation of a program to train teachers for virtual schooling. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 37(4), 399-409.

“It has become apparent that successful online teachers also require a unique set of skills. These are detailed and include collaborative work, verbal and non-verbal presentation skills. The article details the Iowa State University model for teacher preparation. It is also stated that in order for teachers to evolve into Virtual School teaches, their needs to be more support - counselors for the students, design support for the course, and assistance (IT?) in delivering the class. It shares some intruments that are part of their evaluation - they are located here: http://www.iittl.unt.edu/surveys/demos/

Dawson, K. (2006). Teacher inquiry: A vehicle to merge prospective teachers' experience and reflection during curriculum-based, technology-enhanced field experiences. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 38(3), 265-292.

At one level, this article explains the importance of field experiences for prospective teachers. Since I am working with experienced teachers,this aspect of this study does not really apply to what I am interested in. Mentions Yendol-Hoppey	as an expert on professional develop communities. Important quote: 	prospective teachers “do not actually learn from	experience as much	as [they] learn from reflecting on experience” (Posner, 2005, p. 21). The author’s use of the term teacher inquiry refers to both real experiences and reflection. In that sense there is a similarity in my goal of using blogs. The author’s used LoTI (Moersch) as their instrument to look at technology use. The NBEA made the LoTI test available for free 06-07 (may be now?) so this might nbe a useful instrument to pre/post staff use of blogs?

One of their findings was that the exposure and development to technology did not raise the LoTI values up higher than level 3. This was disappointing. Bu there was a self-reported improvement in the teacher’s use of tech - and that is a good point to move from. The need for reflection, again seems to be a significant element in professional growth and is a significant result from this study, even though the main focus was not online refection.

Du, H. S., & Wagner, C. (2007). Learning with weblogs: Enhancing cognitive and social knowledge construction. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 50(1), 1-16.

First premise - a weblog is a new form of a learning log which used to be paper based. Interesting idea - one impediment is that BB and WebCT do not support this! Article makes the point that weblogs have features that favor them over discussion forums or emails - might be nice to show the table info here (p3). Discussion of Collaborative Constructivism is very interesting and a appropriate. Some of the features of weblogs that make them superior to learning logs is their immediacy in knowledge sharing and conversation, their ability for collaboration and group work, their permanence in creating an archive of ideas to be reviewed,\. feedback is quicker and more timely. Their proposition “The continuous use of weblogs as online learning logs enhances the effectiveness of learning by facilitating cognitive knowledge construction, by fostering social knowledge construction, and by reinforcing individual accountability. “ (p6)

Table 2 is a nice map of the strengths of the weblog for building knowledge. Powerful result - they were able to show that blogs has a positive effect on final exam outcomes, and more importantly, was the single best predictor of student achievement.

Gillespie, K. H. (1998). Using technology in faculty development: Practical examples. New Directions for Teaching & Learning(76), 79.

Although a little dated (1998) the article gave specific studies on teachers using technology in development. WebCT, etc were fairly new tools then, so teachers were learning what it takes to be successful. One of the reports was from Brown University they made a campus faculty portal that allowed sharing and communication. No report given on its success, however, but it shows the first steps happening 10 years ago. The Electric Salon at Colorodo State University (1994) used a list-serve to improve and increase participation on campus. An example of the impact was a staff member who said “Heavens, yes! Let us talk about things to each other. It is a good sanity check from time to time.” Marshall university was setting up a mentoring systems for new faculty relying on emeriti - recently retired but still involved members who using electronic communication can still be part of campus life and help mentor newer staff members. This had not been implemented as of the writing of this summary.

Glazer, E., Hannafin, M. J., & Song, L. (2005). Promoting technology integration through collaborative apprenticeship. Educational Technology Research and Development, 53(4), 57.

Quotes study (Hausan and Goldrng 2001) that shows teachers develop better when they feel supported and have a sense of community. Emphasizes the need for teachers to support one another. The Collaborative Appreintiship model invloves three concepts: “a) mutual Engagement, b)shared repertoire, c) join enterprise”. Even though the article walks through 4 phases of development, the thrid phase “proficiency” where teachers more share experiences and identify the areas they need for improve,nt is liek the model I am looking for. When a model is in place, teacher collectively contribute for the whole of the group so the community grows with the knowledge base. There is a strength tot he “just in time” learning that happens here, so the impact is immediate and ongoing. Article says there are three impacts of this model: “(a) building communities of practice for teachers at schools; (b) developing strong leadership on technology integration; and (c) supporting teacher empowerment.”

Author mentions the importnace of creating a common sense of videion though the participation of members and their collective input.

possible article: Collegial interaction and reflective practice. Action in Teacher Education, 22(4), 86–97.

Klein, J. (2005). Effectiveness of school staff meetings: Implications for teacher-training and conduct of meetings. International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 28(1), 67-81.

Toward the discussion of what makes meeting successful, the author cites a research paper by Kainan, in that teachers often have three disparate issues in meetings: individuality, cooperation, and competitiveness. Significant data here about what works and what is needed in staff meetings - if online communities of practice are to develop, teachers beliefs about what they value in knowledge dissemination and interchange are critical! Wow - interesting results - one of the findings was that teaches perceive that meetings are trying to make the school experience more uniform, and want to have the ability to create a different environment in their classes. General Staff meeting son the whole were deemed least effective as compared to subject areas meetings.

Factors that determined success were having a say in the agenda and the involvement in large group decisions in stead of smaller groups being able to be more autonomous.

Important lesson - the author extrapolates that moving conversation and meetings to the internet will have the same effect - if teachers feel they have little input in agenda or are not heard, they will not feel these are effective either. One piece of advice - get staff members involved to set the meeting agenda and rotate that role. At the conclusion the author again encourages a more active role for teachers/staff in setting the agenda and driving the discussion in community meetings.

Koszalka, T. A. (2001). Effect of computer-mediated communications on teachers' attitudes toward using web resources in the classroom. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 28(2), 95.

This is my holy grail - the study question: does teacher use of communication technology affect their use of it worth their students? In the lit review talks about a Goldenberg and Gallimore and Ike study that showed use correlated to knowledge and peer support. After exposure there was a sense of isolation that left the innovative ideas to die off. Teachers who collaborate and share are more likely to implement strategies in using the new technologies. It wasn’t just a case of knowledge but a social norm that was developed by being part of the group. If an environment allows for collaboration and sharing, it increases the chance teachers will adopt a new pedagogy in using technology. In many studies the social nature of electronic communications the ability to connect and share real time greatly enhanced a teacher’s ability to apply the knowledge they were tolling around with. Just as importantly, by using technology to discuss technology the teachers developed the skills and knowledge to use it more effectively. “Changing teachers' attitudes involves restructuring their fundamental beliefs, feelings, and behaviors about what is important for students to learn and how materials such as web resources should support the learning process (Brisco & Peters, 1997).” The research study has two groups answer a reading on a teacher using the web for instruction. The control responded via email, the treatment group used a list-serve for discussion, thus had the ability to read and respond to each others comments. The treatment group had a higher attitudinal score on their experience as a result. What makes this study unique was that even though most studies of social interaction on attitude, this was a study using electronic communication and the results confirm tat even in electronic communication, there is a higher attitudinal change than a control group. Anther important fact was that there were two group size and there was no difference - therefore the group size is not a large a factor in the success of a collaborative community. In summary the data supports the idea that by creating discussion groups electronically, teachers will develop better attitudes on technology and be more likely to implement them.

Lavonen, J., Lattu, M., Juuti, K., & Meisalo, V. (2006). Strategy-based development of teacher educators' ICT competence through a co-operative staff development project. European Journal of Teacher Education, 29(2), 241-265.

The main focus of this paper was student learning and whether the discussion that happen in online course give better insight into the kind and depth of knowledge constructed for online classes. For my tenet, this is relevant if it shows that the involvement builds new knowledge, there is a positive attitude, and whether social mediating the discussion affects the clarity of the learner's knowledge at the finish. There was nice discussion of the IAM (Interaction Anaylsis Model) that looks at the depth of discussion: sharing/comparing, dissonance, negotiation and co-construction, testing, and application. the higher the discussion goes up this hierarchy, the more powerful eh learning. The research questions were to measure knowledge construction in online discourse, to look at how it is constructed, and instructor/facilitator roles and their impact. The results showed a tendency for learners toward knowledge confirmation - lower level learning than the higher knowledge construction. the affect of facilitator mediation was minor and though they asked probing questions to drive the learning towards the higher level construction, there was not much affect.

Matzen, N. J., & Edmunds, J. A. (2007). Technology as a catalyst for change: The role of professional development. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 39(4), 417-430.

Excellent summary of cause and effect - do technology-rich learning environments cause constructivist pedagogy, or is technology just an enabler and the constructivism comes with or without the technology present? After careful surveys and development there was indications of both happening - for teachers that had constructivist leanings their technology use was constructivist. Bi there were also teachers who were more traditional and their use of technology was constructivist. One cause may be that technology here acts a new way of trying instructional ideas so they are more open to other models of instruction,. It might also depend on the quality of the professional exposure - if they see the new technology used as a constructivist tool,  they may well adopt this practice since this is the context that they used it.