Sometimes getting started is the most challenging step of learning something new.

This blog is intended to share my research and my ideas about effective professional development for teacher digital literacy. I have chosen to publicly share my work in the hopes that other people will be able to use my program design to improve their digital literacy skills. The blog will be written in a more information style to help people get started on implementing the program. I will also include links to Google doc files what are open access. You may make copies of these files and save them, however this work is openly licensed via CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 and I request that you respect the terms of the license.

Where, and when, I can I have hyperlinked resources for you so that you have direct access to the information that helped to inform my project along the way. These may be research articles, open resources, video files, or other digital materials I found useful. I will be making a resources page which will be accessible through the blog and include the resources included in the posts for this project.

The purpose of this project was to read the available literature on teacher professional development, explore learning theories, and design a professional development program to support teachers in improving their digital literacy skills. This project is founded on social constructivism, Lev Vygotsky’s theory of social learning and Zone of Proximal Development (1978) and Wenger’s (1998) Communities of Practice.

This project was designed as a course outline that people can use as a guide to develop their one professional development or establish their own Communities of Practice (I won’t be offering a course myself).

Much of the research into teacher professional development in regards to integrating technology acknowledges that there’s lots of work to be done and changes need to be made to provide better support for educators. While it’s the general consensus among the researchers, there seems to have been little action towards making changes to professional development. This course outline is offered as a starting place.

To get started, here’s what you need:

  • A group of teachers/educators who want to develop their digital literacy skills.
  • A place to meet (in person or online — whatever works best!)
  • Technology
    • Computer or tablet — they should be fairly new and able to keep up with the programs
    • Headphones with a microphone — these are not needed for every session but they are helpful to have if you’re organizing an online Community of Practice and for the sessions which include audio
    • Reliable internet — whether you’re meeting online or in-person, many of the platforms are internet based and you will need to connect to them
  • A willingness to participate in the program throughout the program duration

For a more detailed list and the session outlines, please see the syllabus and course outline page.