Facilitating Technology Integration through Effective Professional Development: A Local School Model.

The purpose of this study was to develop a comprehensive model for local school technology professional development that facilitated technology integration into the curriculum. The local school technology committee conducted an informal performance analysis to determine a plan of action. As a needs assessment, stakeholders were surveyed to determine requisite technology professional development for the local school staff. From this data, a long-range professional development plan was created, including goals and objectives for each year, an in-depth yearly plan with detailed implementation procedures for each objective, and individual teacher plans. The goal of the professional development plan was to increase staff technology skills by 5% as measured by the Technology Skills Assessment. A comparison of pre- and post-assessments indicated that participants increased technology skills by 29.59%. During the pretest, 50% of the participants scored in the beginner skill level. A posttest comparison revealed that none of the participants scored in the beginner level; all participants scored in the intermediate or advanced category. (Author)