Page 204 - Štremfel, Urška, and Maša Vidmar (eds.). 2018. Early School Leaving: Training Perspectives. Ljubljana: Pedagoški inštitut.
P. 204
1). Since existing traditional face-to-face professional development pro-
grammes typically do not include all of the educators in a school and the
courses are usually held as one-off events, online virtual communities and
all complementary alternatives could enable educators to share their expe-
riences and exchange information and reflections and complement them
continuously and collaboratively and thus improve as both individuals and
a school team.
Many existing teacher professional development programmes are not
high in quality, offering only ‘fragmented, intellectually superficial’ semi-
nars (Borko, 2004) that do not meet the educators’ expectations in terms
of developing the much needed competencies. Not only are educators of-
ten not very satisfied with the traditional professional development train-
ing courses but the lack of continuity of and collective approaches to those
training courses also needs to be addressed. Therefore, several strong initi-
atives for implementing new technologies in educators’ professional devel-
opment have emerged since the end of the 20th century.
The use of ICT in education in general was recently found to be most
effective when it is used as a teaching supplement, as learning support, as
encouragement for reflection and as promotion for cognitive dissonance
(Smetana & Bell, 2012), as an enrichment (Pedro, 2005) and not so much
if it is used as the only source for learning. Since teachers are (already)
education professionals with limited time and financial resources, ICT-
supported possibilities for professional development are among the easi-
ly accessible ways to achieve the goal of supporting educators’ professional
development. It is commonly agreed that we need to build teachers’ ca-
pacity for development and improvement but we also need to be sure that
time, effort and scarce resources are expended only on quality programmes
(Dede, Ketelhut, Whitehouse, Breit, & McCloskey, 2009). Virtual platforms
and supporting online networks could make the implementation of edu-
cators’ competence development more effective in all those aspects: online
teacher professional development models can provide high quality learn-
ing opportunities; teachers have access to experts in a given field; they are
able to collaborate with others; online learning allows time for (self)reflec-
tion and for dialogue; it allows for flexibility in scheduling, timing and the
development of one’s own learning spaces. In other words, it can be em-
powering as teachers take ownership of their own learning. Online teach-
er professional development can also serve as a bridge between preservice
204
grammes typically do not include all of the educators in a school and the
courses are usually held as one-off events, online virtual communities and
all complementary alternatives could enable educators to share their expe-
riences and exchange information and reflections and complement them
continuously and collaboratively and thus improve as both individuals and
a school team.
Many existing teacher professional development programmes are not
high in quality, offering only ‘fragmented, intellectually superficial’ semi-
nars (Borko, 2004) that do not meet the educators’ expectations in terms
of developing the much needed competencies. Not only are educators of-
ten not very satisfied with the traditional professional development train-
ing courses but the lack of continuity of and collective approaches to those
training courses also needs to be addressed. Therefore, several strong initi-
atives for implementing new technologies in educators’ professional devel-
opment have emerged since the end of the 20th century.
The use of ICT in education in general was recently found to be most
effective when it is used as a teaching supplement, as learning support, as
encouragement for reflection and as promotion for cognitive dissonance
(Smetana & Bell, 2012), as an enrichment (Pedro, 2005) and not so much
if it is used as the only source for learning. Since teachers are (already)
education professionals with limited time and financial resources, ICT-
supported possibilities for professional development are among the easi-
ly accessible ways to achieve the goal of supporting educators’ professional
development. It is commonly agreed that we need to build teachers’ ca-
pacity for development and improvement but we also need to be sure that
time, effort and scarce resources are expended only on quality programmes
(Dede, Ketelhut, Whitehouse, Breit, & McCloskey, 2009). Virtual platforms
and supporting online networks could make the implementation of edu-
cators’ competence development more effective in all those aspects: online
teacher professional development models can provide high quality learn-
ing opportunities; teachers have access to experts in a given field; they are
able to collaborate with others; online learning allows time for (self)reflec-
tion and for dialogue; it allows for flexibility in scheduling, timing and the
development of one’s own learning spaces. In other words, it can be em-
powering as teachers take ownership of their own learning. Online teach-
er professional development can also serve as a bridge between preservice
204
