After last week’s #BYOTchat on how to begin a new BYOT program, we decided to focus this week’s chat  on professional development (PD) (or professional learning.) I started off by throwing this question out:

“…to the teachers, what GOOD PD have you experienced? What made it good?”

There were a few enlightening responses; @cbraryman1 said the best PD he ever had was hands-on learning, and @hugghinss said Twitter itself was the best PD!  @40ishoracle mentioned a “tech petting zoo,” and shared with us a picture of what that would look like.”

This lead to a discussion about how to approach PD.  More specifically, how structured should BYOT PD be?  @SteveHayes_RB60 said the best PD is self-motivated learning, but commented that not all teachers are able to dedicate that time and energy into figuring out which resources are good, who to connect with, and how to integrate some of those resources into their classroom.  I suggested part of PD be aiding teachers in establishing a method for continuing self-study – blogs to subscribe to, Twitter users to follow, and other websites with useful resources.  In addition, the need to merely provide time for teachers to collaborate with each other and share came up a few times, with a reference to “Google 20% time” as a model.

The entire question of what level of guidance versus on-your-own-learning was never quite settled; a lot of it really depends on the comfort level of the teachers involved.  If most of the teachers are at a point where they’re just beginning to use technology, then the PD process has to be more hand-holding, whereas teachers who have some level of comfort with technology may just need some help with classroom use.

The discussion focused mostly on the actual learning of the technology, rather than getting into how to deal with various issues that may come up during the day.  In our previous chat, we talked a lot about how to manage tech support for many devices, and including this information in PD is necessary, but we didn’t touch on it during the chat.  This EdWeek article talks about some of the policy issues that can arise with BYOT, and I expect we’ll discuss some of these issues in more depth in future chats.

Ultimately, PD has to be focused on the needs, desires, and time constraints of the teachers using it.  Some teachers prefer to be more collaborative, some need more structure, some just need more time, and providing the right learning environment for teachers is crucial to successful PD.

[Cross-posted at It's Time!]