Paper

Professional
Development

Application

Results

• newness of the technology to the users
• concerns

project coordinators: about the open nature

teachers: excited by the concept of sharing their work

Advantages

• addressed the common need for professional development to include a mechanism for follow-up
• location where the teachers can share the results and reflections after program
• contributed to community building among the participants
• tool for sustaining the momentum
• extended impact beyond the local school district.

Technology Advantage

Project coordinators RSS aggregator to stay current with the materials that were published online by the teachers.

Results:

(+) participants generally had a positive experience using blog

(+) pride in having their work widely accessible

(-) participating teachers experienced some degree of difficulty learning to blog initially, and they felt that they needed more help and instruction to become independent bloggers

(-) comment features not often used

Suggestions:

Use blog able to handle attachments and images

Also consider WYSIWYG wiki - may have better suited a project of this nature in which drafts of work are posted, updated, and expanded

Figure 2: Sample participant blog.