Technology Bootcamp: 10 Days of #EduAwesome Professional Development

One of the best parts about working in my school district is the collaboration, publishing, and presenting I get to do as part of the www.AppsInClass.com team.  We began our journey as a group of lead learners in the PSUSD iPad Trailblazer Program, and we've ended up becoming all-around technology #EduGeeks who just can't seem to stop! We've grown into our own as model classrooms, technology advocates, teacher trainers, and publishers of content.  As a professional journey, it's not half bad.  As a personal one?  Priceless.

Three members of the AppsInClass team were chosen to pilot our district's student-centered Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) pilot for the 2012-2013 school year: John Stevens, Mike Cloutier, and myself.  Our pilot was quite successful, and as a result, Mike and I were asked to work with two other members of the AppsInClass team (Lee Grafton and Eddie Rivera - both Instructional Technology Specialists), to put together a training series to prepare teachers to make the shift to a BYOD environment, as well as utilize other cutting-edge technology to elevate the pedagogy in PSUSD classrooms.   This coming academic year, our district plans to roll out some BYOD classrooms at every secondary school.  Purchasing will be concentrated in provide supplementary devices to flesh out each sanctioned BYOD classroom, as well as increase the student-technology ratios at the elementary level.  

As anyone who has ever written a tech plan or rolled out a new tech program knows, professional development is essential.  The best P.D. is relevant, practical, hands-on, and teacher-driven, so that's just what our district asked us to develop and present/facilitate.  Our district had already received a DigiCom grant to provide a four day digital storytelling workshop with the fabulous Bernajean Porter (DigiTales).  I was lucky enough to help facilitate the first two days of the workshop, which was such an honor and a pleasure,  before our own training series began.  From that point, we offered eight additional days of training on each of the following subjects:

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How to Flip Your Classroom

Presented by Jessica Pack and Lee Grafton.

Establishing a Web Presence

Presented by Jessica Pack and Bhavini Patel (Team 1) and Mike Cloutier and Eddie Rivera (Team 2).

How to Rock Student BYOD

Presented by Jessica Pack and Lee Grafton/Bhavini Patel (Team 1) and Mike Cloutier and Eddie Rivera (Team2).

Publishing Like a Rockstar: iTunes U and iBooks Author Content Creation

Presented by Jessica Pack and Mike Cloutier.  

Introduction to Google Docs

Presented by Mike Cloutier and Eddie Rivera.

Advanced Flipped Classroom

Presented by Lee Grafton, Jessica Pack, and Eddie Rivera.  Resources housed on a private Haiku page.

All of the workshops were offered on a rotation basis, so it was possible to take all six workshops within the ten day window.  Training began the week after school dismissed for the summer, so most teachers seemed to view the content as something they could implement right away in September when the new academic year will afford them a fresh start.  Our intent was provide multiple entry points for a variety of teacher technology skill levels, and the feedback we received indicates we were successful in that mission.  Some of our classes, such as Advanced Flipped Classroom and iTunes U/iBooks Author Content Creation were geared toward teachers with mid to high-level tech proficiency.  Often, it seems that advanced tech teachers get left out of the development equation, so we wanted to do them justice as well.  Here are a few tweets from teachers who attended workshops:

In every session, we emphasized the importance of Twitter as daily, personalized P.D. and we promoted EdCamp Palm Springs like crazy, which resulted in an initial sell-out of tickets and gave us the opportunity to open up fifty more spots! Teachers walked away with hands-on experience using device agnostic tools for mixed platform classrooms, flipped lessons/units they'll be able to utilize in September, and iTunes U courses they developed to structure project-based learning. Teachers were building websites, screencasting, and beginning to publish their own content with iBooks Author, too. What a phenomenal two weeks of learning!

Overall, I think the 10 day Technology Bootcamp was a huge success.  Most encouraging to me was the knowledge that teachers in my district are truly enthusiastic about leveraging more student-centered technology in their classrooms to enhance learning.  In every session, there was an almost palpable undercurrent of energy and excitement as doors to new pedagogical opportunities opened and professional horizons expanded.  Now, as I sit here writing this blog post, I feel an overwhelming appreciation for the AppsInClass team, Palm Springs Unified, and all of the teachers who gave up a portion of their summer vacation to edge a little closer to #EduGeek.  

What kind of professional development have you been able to participate in lately? What makes good P.D. from your standpoint? Continue the conversation by commenting on this post or hit me up on Twitter @Packwoman208.

By Jessica Pack
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