Collaboration Tools for Collaborative Planning, Development, and Evaluation

Video Transcription

One of the challenges in implementing collaborative professional development and growth plans is finding the time to collaborate with one another through the implementation process and continually as you monitor your progress on the path toward meeting your professional development goals. Fortunately, we are finding it increasingly easier to access technology and simple applications on mobile devices, for example. And this can help us to collaborate with our peers from really, virtually any place, both synchronicity and asynchronously.

So throughout this tutorial, I am going to share with you a wide ranging list of collaborative tools that can help you in the development and implementation and monitoring of your professional development or growth plan through the use of technology. I'll provide you with a list of tools that can be used for collaboration, then tools for communication, tools for critical thinking, and tools for creativity. Let's get started.

Let's begin by examining some digital collaboration tools that allow the participants to collaborate across any number of settings, either altogether in real-time or as each group member finds it most convenient to contribute. You can use Google Hangout or Skype to collaborate in real-time. Google applications like Google Docs, Google Drive, and Google Presentations allow you to create a variety of types of documents, and then work, again, either synchronously or asynchronously, both on the development of your professional development plan and on tracking of progress. SmartSheet.com can be used to both track and monitor the action steps that are contained in your professional development or growth plan.

A great example of using a collaborative tool is creating your professional growth or development plan right within Google Docs, and then sharing that document not only with the members of your collaborative team, but also with your principal or any other administrator who is going to be involved in teacher evaluation, if this plan is going to be part of your teacher evaluation process. This can help your professional development plan to become a fluid document that is always reflecting your progress towards meeting your goals. And also reflecting any changes in your school environment or any other changes that might be relevant to the plan.

There are many different technological tools that are going to allow you to communicate, really, anytime and anywhere with the members of your collaborative professional development team. You might use Twitter, or Facebook, or instant messaging websites or apps. You can use Vox or the chat features in Google Docs. You can use Google Phone, texting, VoiceThread, and videoconferencing.

If you're already using Google Docs for the platform for your professional growth and development plan, then the chat features in Google Docs might be very useful for you. Not only can you track changes to your document within Google Docs itself, but you can also use the integrated chat feature to communicate at any time with the other people who are collaborating with you on your plan.

You might also consider looking at social media in a new light. Instead of just considering Twitter and Facebook to be completely unrelated to the world of education, think about connecting with other educators on Twitter and on Facebook. You can connect with people from all over the world and get a wealth of ideas, that then can be incorporated into your classroom everyday and also into your professional growth and development plan.

Next, let's consider some resources for critical thinking. There are lots of technology resources out there that can help you to solve problems like Google Scholar, InstaGrok, advanced searching techniques including using Boolean tools, coding, analytics, GapMinder, and Wolfram Alpha, among many others. As a math teacher, I've found Wolfram Alpha to be particularly helpful. This is a great place to start a search for new techniques that my PLC colleagues and I can use in approaching problems in our classrooms and in trying to differentiate instruction.

A great all-around tool is learning some advanced searching techniques. You'll find that it is so much easier to find answers to your questions if you know what to search for. So, once again, this can help you in the context of your collaborative professional development as it just can help to simplify the process of trying to find answers to questions. When your team is discussing a particular issue, if you know how to search effectively, you can save a lot of time and make the best possible use of your collaborative work time.

Finally, technology is going to offer you many new opportunities to create and publish information in both new and innovative ways. For example, you can use blogs, and vlogs, and digital storytelling. Prezi, and Thinklinks, and a variety of other web sites are going to be available for you to use. You may even create your own website. You may create vines or collaborate on a wiki.

In the context of your collaborative professional development, your team may choose to create a blog that is shared with other members of your school or district. Maybe you would choose to even publish it for the world to see so that not only can others follow your progress, but also there's that element of accountability that you feel when you know that you are making yourself responsible for the publishing of this blog. And for carefully and effectively communicating your progress with others.

Your collaborative group may also choose to establish and work together on a wiki, where you can share resources with one another and communicate. A great feature of a wiki is that you're going to be able to come back to that at any time. Some of the communication tools like using Facebook, or using Skype, or a Google Hangout tends to be more temporary. Once you end the video chat-- for example-- there's the potential to have lost the information that you shared. But if you are compiling information and resources in the context of a wiki, you can come back in a year or in five years, and retrieve that information.

Here's a chance for you to stop and reflect. I've shared with you a few dozen potential collaborative resources. So now take a few minutes to explore a couple of resources that sounded particularly interesting to you. Can you see how these resources might be applied in the context of your collaborative professional development?

As you reflect on how this new information can be applied, you may want to explore the Additional Resources section that accompanies this video presentation. This is where you'll find links to resources chosen to help you deepen your learning and explore ways to apply your newly acquired skill set

Thanks for watching. Have a great day.