March 4, 2000

We have two Phorum assignments for the week, one for Strategies and the other for Staff Development.

Strategies: Web Authoring Q & A.

Web authoring, as you have found when using most other computer applications, requires some problem-solving skills. It also requires that you know the organization of your hard drive and the structure of your files and folders. As you note broken images or links after uploading, for example, you need to go back to your web folder on your hard drive and check the paths to your images or links. Most of the time, the problem has to do with your having renamed a link or an image. Or, you may have moved the image or a site link, but you haven't made those path changes on the page you're revising. The simple solution is to delete the broken link or image and then re-insert it. Then, you need to save and upload. Web authors refer to this as the edit, save, browse cycle.

So, here's the Phorum assignment for the Strategies class. It has several parts to it.

• Post your questions to the Phorum. In the Available Forums list, you'll see Projects. Within that Forum, I've created a Web Authoring thread with several threads for questions about the various applications. There's also a "General Questions" category.

Web Authoring Questions

• If you have solved a particular problem that a fellow iMETer is experiencing, then reply to the question with some encouraging and practical advice or suggestions. I will also respond as needed.
• Read Robin Williams and John Tollett (The Non-Designer's Web Book) through Chapter 8. You'll start to get it. These authors really give excellent examples with wonderful illustrations. And, it's easy reading.
• Read Ivers and Barron (Multimedia Projects in Education). You should be through Chapter 3 by now which covers the part of the planning process they call "Decide".
• Use my tutorials:

  Web Authoring 282

Pay particular attention to Lesson 4 on Modifying Sites. You can always go back to the first few lessons if you need them. Lesson Two also contains links to tutorials I've made for Composer and PageMill.

• Finally, also in the Forums list, I have created a thread for your Ed's Oasis Web Concept Statements.

  Ed's Oasis Web Concepts

  These concept statements will draw others to your ideas and will assist you in putting together a group for this assignment. If you decide to work alone, you may still get group feedback on your ideas. I have posted this early, because I know it will be a busy week for you. Enjoy the challenges and the readings. You are making excellent progress.

Staff Development:

"To reach the goal of preparing teachers for effective technology use, a well-designed professional development program is essential. Professional development in a technological age requires new definitions and new resources. It cannot take the traditional forms of individual workshops or one-time training sessions. Instead, it must be viewed as an ongoing and integral part of teachers' professional lives." (Rodriguez & Knuth, 2000)

Read "Critical Issue: Providing Professional Development for Effective Technology Use" by Rodriguez and Knuth. This article will take some time to read, in fact with all its links, you may never finish it. Gotta love that "Dynamic Complexity"! However, the important issue is the one that surrounds the connection between staff development and student learning.

The first steps:

In the thread I have created for you on the Phorum, briefly describe the first five steps you believe you need to take in order to incorporate "effective" staff development into your district technology plan. 

• In this description, define a realistic role for yourself or adopt a
  current district position from which you could have an impact on staff development. This may be your current role. 
• The five steps should be incorporated within an initial discussion that attempts to elicit faculty support for what you are coming to realize is necessary for effective staff development in technology. 
• If you have colleagues (iMET or otherwise) in your district working with you already in this area, mention how you will collaborate to begin the incorporation process. 
• Similarly, if discussions and plans are already in progress, share that progress in your outline. Others will benefit from where you've been.

In your description, you will eventually reach a stage where you will find that you may not be able to proceed. This is your stopping point. Other Phorum and Tapped In readings, responses and activities will follow that may give you insight as to how to proceed.

Please don't take this assignment lightly. The success or failure of technology integration is already correlated with staff development activity. Rodriguez and Knuth cite a recent study by Fatemi:

"Teachers who received technology training in the past year are more likely than teachers who hadn't to say they feel 'better prepared' to integrate technology into their classroom lessons," notes Fatemi (1999). "They also are more likely to use and rely on digital content for instruction, and to spend more time trying out software and searching for Web sites to use in class."

Further, as you continue your review of literature, you will find numerous other recent pieces of research that address this correlation.