2nd Grade MacBook Basics {Tech PD Recap}

Yesterday I was able to meet with most of our second grade team to learn more about their new MacBook Pros.  They are a dedicated group of teachers!  We met early in the morning and despite the early hour, they were awake and ready to learn more about their devices.  As stated in a previous post, our Tech & Media Team is focusing on providing teacher-directed professional development, so based on the feedback we received, the meeting met their needs, as it was driven by their input and questions.  I introduced them to our new approach to PD that integrates the adopted learning design model as well as Kagan structures and they were very receptive and eager to learn new strategies that they could implement with their students.
In surveying the teachers, they identified many areas that they would like to learn more about in regards to their MacBook Pros.  All information was recorded in a presentation (found below - if you are unable to view the presentation below, please click here) and was used as a reference during the meeting.  Also included in the presentation is a link to our meeting agenda. This was our third meeting with teachers since we implemented our new professional development approach.  I feel with each meeting, we are becoming more comfortable and reassured with our approach to our professional development.  When reviewing the feedback from the post-PD survey, a teacher left the following quote regarding the PD session:

"I love the way you incorporated usable ideas for lessons and also features that I was unaware of but will find extremely useful. MORE of the same. I love the small groups and appreciate you taking the time to individualize this to our needs."

We couldn't be happier to read this, and know that teachers are taking more away from our professional development other than just technical knowledge. We are working towards a more integrated model of technology use, where the computer or other device is a tool that supports teaching and learning. This quote reaffirms that we are definitely moving forward and teachers value their own professional learning time.