Professional development is one of the most crucial—and frequently overlooked—aspects of implementing a technology initiative. Effective professional development goes far beyond one-time training sessions designed to introduce new technologies. It is ongoing, frequently reinforced, well-supported and embedded into the daily life of schools.

Suggestions for building an effective professional development program to support your one-to-one program or other technology initiatives include:

• Provide teachers and administrators with the technology one year prior to implementing with students; before they can be comfortable using the technology to teach, educators must be comfortable employing it for their own personal use and professional growth.
• Focus professional development sessions on technology integration, data-driven decision-making, and meaningful uses of technology in the curriculum, rather than on how-to lessons.
• Offer opportunities for educators to get their how-to technology questions answered through just-in-time, technology-based modules and peer support.
• Use a similar approach for reinforcing crucial information covered in face-to-face sessions. For example, you might post a Q&A data-coach session online to direct teachers on how to use student data to track instructional planning, assessments and student progress.
• Professional development should be ongoing and reinforced in a number of different ways, rather than one-time workshops without any follow-up.
• Implement mentoring programs in which more experienced technology-using teachers support their colleagues.
• Since every minute of class time is precious, provide teachers—and student support teams—with sufficient technical instruction so that they feel comfortable addressing minor interruptions of connectivity in the classroom.
• Create guidelines and initiate discussions to help teachers identify the best uses of technology and avoid situations in which the technology becomes a distraction.
• Teachers, like students, should have opportunities to learn at their own levels and in their own style.
• Remember that professional development is an ongoing process. Prepare staff to see issues as challenges rather than obstacles, and offer encouragement for improvement.

Using data to monitor and shape instruction is essential to education today—not just in teaching students but also in designing effective professional development. One way to do this is by implementing a human capital management solution that allows your district to track teachers' participation and progress in professional development offerings. Applying a data-driven approach to professional development also allows you to monitor and improve the quality and consistency of teacher education over time.

Proposed Federal Program: Preparing Teachers for Digital Age Learners

The Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) program—a federal pre-service grant program that provided more than 400 grants to schools of education during its five years of operation—is credited with having a significant impact on improving teacher education programs and bringing them into the 21st century. In reauthorizing the Higher Education Act in 2008, lawmakers proposed a successor to PT3: Preparing Teachers for Digital Age Learners (PTDAL). The PTDAL program would award three-year grants to colleges of education to ensure they are equipping pre-service teachers with the skills needed to integrate technology effectively into K-12 classrooms. Although President Obama's proposed FY2010 budget did not provide funding for this program and the bill never became law, a number of organizations are urging Congress to reintroduce it. To learn more, see: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-5848