1. Teacher Education and Professional Development:
Some strategies that are
working
Kathryn Murphy-Judy, Ph.D.
CALICO 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
10am Merrill 4

2. Overview
Introduction: stating the problem
Viral no-cost solutions in action:
FLEX
VA Teacher Educator Consortium
FLAVA
Service Learning mentoring

3. Introduction
We have reached a point where technological
innovation is outstripping personal and
societal capacities to absorb and evolve in time.
This state of affairs (not yet that of the
“Singularity”) is too evident in institutions--
economic, political, and, perhaps most
importantly, educational.

4. for example. . .
The technology to drill deep
sea wells is obviously
exploitable.
Antiquated, irrational and
incommensurate economic
systems (like that giving
rise to oil conglomerates)
drive catastrophic events.
Political systems are self--
defeatingly and globally
destructively entropic and
inadequate before and after.

5. In education. . .
21st century technological innovations and mediations with
concomitant personal and social reconfigurations and adaptations
slam up against 20th century theories, methods, standards, structures,
hierarchies and fears. ( See PARC forum on feral technology.)
Teachers, in large measure, are not being invited to Singularity
University or the H+ Summit @ Harvard .
Educational institutions, from international down to local, may say
they want technological innovation in teaching and learning and are
willing to pay for equipment . . . but not training.

6. So, what do we do?
What we can, when
we can, with as
much or as little
support as we find at
our disposal.

7. Doing my best . . .
by insinuating and
ab-using
technologies and
social/professional
organizations at my
disposal to make
inroads with current
and future teachers.

8. Various inroads . . .
Locally: FLEX, the Foreign Language
EXchange of Greater Richmond
Statewide: VA FL Teacher Educators
Consortium
Statewide: FLAVA, the Foreign
Language Association of Virginia
Service Learning/Mentoring

9. FLEX: a local K-16 articulation group
We offer 2 training
sessions/year,
sometimes more.
We host a listserv.
We run a Ning.

10. VA FL Ted & Dvlp. Consortium
Open to all teacher
trainers in VA and
beyond (including
post-secondary
educators and
county supervisors.
Meets yearly at
ACTFL
Runs a wiki

11. FLAVA
Google Docs for
minutes, bylaw
revisions, &c.
Web conferencing
Jings for how-to.

12. Service Learning
WRLD 203 Global
Media and New
Literacies
Social media and
beyond
Service learning:
mentor RPS/NPS
teachers

13. 100 students: 50 teachers
I gathered names/emails of
interested teachers at in-
service workshops
Student pairs sent
introductory email and
request for areas of interest
Biggest problem: teacher
dropouts.
work ranged from Google
Docs to Facebook to
blogging.

14. Mentoring blogs
http:// student helping an ESL
kawtharsnewblog.blogspot.com student w/English and tech
/ http://deedee-
knowledgeispower.blogspot.co
http:// m/
teachermentoring123.blogspot.
com/ by a teacher:http://
bluskiesbaby.blogspot.com/
http://
watadaytuesday.blogspot.com after class was over, the
/ learning keeps
spreading:http://
valenavalena.blogspot.com/
2009/12/greetings-from-

15. Mentees’ comments
<celkaissijohnson@nps.k12.va.us>Ivana finished Mary Ellen had no problems with the applications,
her tutoring with me. She did a great job answering and said she will use most of them. She also said that
my questions, and sending me instructions. Her she will also mentor some of her colleagues who she
tutoring was very beneficial to me. I enjoyed it.Thank feels will benefit from these various applications that
you, and I apologize for not being able to send my we taught her. She is not able to use all of them since
feedback earlier.Best regards, she is a second grade teacher, but she will benefit from
them in future use. I feel that this teacher-mentee
From a Google Doc: Mentoring Brittany Fulk's program was a great program, even though it got off
Aunt, Mary Ellen Earley was a fun experience. Since to a rocky start at first. This program is great, in that
Brittany Fulk was my partner and our teacher was there are a lot of people out there, especially teachers,
her aunt, she did most of the communication with that can benefit from our knowledge that can make
Mary Ellen through e-mails. I communicated mostly their lives, and teaching career, more easier and
with her aunt face to face and through twitter. Her stress-free.
name @name is @mermersnead and mine is
@memeyagurl. The link to these conversations is
http://twitter.com/Memeyagurl. I documented all of
my work through my blog on blog.com, the link is
http://melindawilliams.blog.com/. These links are
also located on the technology spreadsheet that we
filled out at the beginning of the semester.I can say
that it was fun mentoring Mary Ellen. She was a
quick learner and always willing to learn the new
applications.

16. The problem from another
angle
Next generation teachers may use social media,
but not well. Few ‘translate’ it into the
teaching/learning context.
Many teacher trainers lack technology
proficiency, thus offering little but cursory
glances at various affordances. Rarely do they
grasp, much less model, communicative and
social integrations of new media into FLE.

17. How to bridge the gaps
Top down: get teacher trainers and supervisors
using new media using ACTFL, AATs,
NCATE, INTASC, &c.
Middle ground: use every promotional venue at
hand (in-services, workshops, conferences,
departmental work like minutes/bylaws)
Bottom-up: Get those using new media (iGen)
to infiltrate the teaching ranks. Elsewhere to
request technology infused training

18. Keep the faith.
kmurphy@vcu.edu