Providing professional development opportunities s a vital part of a school library media specialist's job. It is one of the most powerful ways that a school LMS can demonstrate the importance of their role and help move their staff towards a better understanding of 21st century technologies and skills.
Most of my professional development takes place on an as-needed basis. When teachers have the time and the desire to learn about a new technology, we set up a time and work together either one-on-one or in a small group. I have worked with teachers on things as small as installing printers and file management to things as large as Moodle, blogging, and podcasting. Every month I send out a request for a monthly update from each teacher; on this I ask the teachers to list their units of study and what I can do to help them. Through this form, I offer my teachers individual professional development opportunities every month.
One of the all-school staff development programs I did was to present the new library automation system (Destiny) to the staff. Because it was on a day full of meetings, I tried to keep it to a minimum. I have found that staff development works better for me if I try to attend the grade-level team meetings and the related arts team meetings. This way I can tailor my "teaching" to better serve the needs of the particular staff with whom I am working, and the staff is more likely to pay attention. This is how I worked with the whole staff on Moodle, and I found it to be very successful. My principal is very supportive of me and my efforts in terms of staff development.
Future goals I have for staff development in my school are to give teachers a survey so I can better understand how they would like staff development from me to be implemented and so I can see what areas interest them the most. I would like to do have more organized professional development opportunities for my staff to help our school move forward with technology and 21st century skills.
