Barbour, M. K., Bleich, L., & Orrill C. (2004, February). LTTS: Online professional development for technology integration. Paper presented at the annual Georgia Educational Technology Conference, Macon, GA.

1. Learning to Teach with
Technology Studio
The Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education,
U.S. Department of Education
USDE Grant Number P339B990108-01

2. LTTS Goals
To help educators:
1. Integrate technology with a significant and
positive impact on student learning
2. Develop inquiry lessons to promote students’
critical thinking skills in the content areas
3. Apply curriculum standards
4. Obtain high quality professional development
anytime, anywhere, and at any pace

3. LTTS Features
• Pedagogically grounded
– Problem centered model
– Adapted to online environment
• Guided problem solving
– Links theory and practice
• Problem is based in curriculum issues
• Resources address inquiry teaching, content
knowledge, and standards
• Result is a content-based, inquiry lesson adapted to
the teacher’s class requirements

4. LTTS Features
• High Quality
– Research-based (with ongoing research and
development)
– Designed by teachers and instructional
designers in collaboration
– Tested nationally with teachers &
administrators (focus groups; user testing)
– Quality control via online mentoring

5. LTTS Features
• Accessible
– 50 short, focused courses (about 15 hours each)
– Self-paced and start at any time
– Does not require any onsite component
– Does not require coordinating with other
learners

6. LTTS
LTTS site
LTTS course

7. LTTS
• Let’s review, each course:
– presents a problem and outlines a solution
– is divided into activities
– provides for feedback from a facilitator
– offers a list of suggested resources for use
– allows for a second complete submission after
revisions have occurred
– presents opportunity for self-assessment of your
work and the course

8. LTTS
• Let’s review:
– Each course is divided into activities:
• 4-8 components for your virtual field trip to include
• submit your battle and how it relates to the
curriculum outcomes and standards
• select 10 Web sites to use
• create a lesson plan about your battle that includes
the 4-8 components, the curriculum outcomes and
standards, and the 10 Web sites
• submit the rubric to evaluate your virtual field trip

9. LTTS Effectiveness
Learning and Performance Support Lab
(UGA) 2001-02 Evaluation
– Thirteen teachers in different courses reporting
weekly
• 2 media specialists, 4 middle school teachers, 1
elementary math specialist, and 7 kindergarten
teachers
• 7 different courses
• all but 1 of the teachers who began completed their
course

10. Evaluation - Questions
1. What goals did teachers set for themselves
in the professional development
experience?
2. How did the teachers characterize and
assess their learning?
3. What were the emergent issues in teacher-
directed professional development?

11. Evaluation - Goals
• “I want to expand the use of technology in my
class and integrate it into my curriculum.”
• “How to incorporate the computer in more of
my classroom activities”
• “To be more comfortable with the computer, be
more effective teaching”
• “How to improve my computer skills and get
some basic training”
• “Many ways to use the Internet in a
[Kindergarten] classroom. Easy tools!”

12. Evaluation - Goals
• “How to better help with students problem
solving and using the Internet”
• “I am hoping to learn how to better integrate
technology in my teaching.”
• “New ideas for teaching”
• “I want to know what other people are doing to
integrate technology in their teaching so that I
might get better at it.”
• “To further own learning and growth as a
balanced teacher”

13. Evaluation – System Feedback
Percent of students who agree or strongly agree.
The ability to move at my own pace was 94%
important to me
I would prefer going through this course with 27%
other students as a class

14. Evaluation – System Feedback
Percent of students who agree or strongly agree.
I expect to use or have already used the projects 90%
developed in this course in my classroom
I can apply what I learned in this course to other 92%
activities in my classroom
I learned a lot in this course 89%

15. Evaluation – System Feedback
This class has made me open my eyes to not only
technology, but also teaching using inquiry learning.
As I've progressed through the construction of these
lessons, I've found myself "backing off" and trying to
become more of a guide to my student's education than
a director trying to get the students perform the way I
felt they should. I find that by modeling and then
letting my students discover their own ideas, they are
in control of their learning and it is more authentic to
them and their educational needs. The differences I've
seen in my students in just the past 4 weeks are
astounding. They are taking chances and are not afraid
to try new things.

16. Evaluation – System Feedback
How satisfied are you with your electronic field
trip project? Please explain .
Very! I have enjoyed the process of developing this activity and I
think it is going to be successful enough to use again even if I
have to make some modifications. Although technically it's
something I could have done on my own, the feedback I
received and the guidelines for the final project really pushed
me to more clearly articulate what I was trying to accomplish
and how I was planning on evaluating the success of the lesson.
That is something I don't think I could have done alone.

17. Evaluation – System Feedback
How satisfied are you with your understanding
of creating lessons using the Internet as a
resource? Please explain.
One of the reasons I took this course is so that I would
feel less intimidated by the technology. It's funny now
that I'm inclined to say that the Internet part of the
course was the least important of what I learned, like
that part is no big deal. I think what happened is that
this course helped me integrate good teaching practice
with the technology so that now I know better how to
merge the two. I would say I am definitely more likely
to utilize the Internet as a resource now and feel even
kind of silly for being afraid!

18. Evaluation - Facilitation
“Just kinda letting me know if I was doing ok, if I
was on the right track. Just kind of a guide on
the side type thing.”
LTTS has since added complete
facilitation of each course

19. Promising Features
• Anytime, anywhere, any pace
• Effective for building useful classroom
product
• Teachers report greater confidence in using
technology in their classroom
• Some evidence that it promotes
implementation of inquiry learning in the
classroom

20. Pitfall
• Anytime, anywhere, any pace
• Sense of isolation or being lost (lack of
ability to create effective strategies)
• Goal paradox (teacher goals may not
always meet facilitator goals, but courses
are driven by teacher goals)
• Inquiry-based learning environment

21. Next Steps
Learning and Performance Support Lab
(UGA) 2003-04 Evaluation
– 5 teachers in different courses reporting weekly
• currently completing their courses (phase I)
• will be implementing product in March-April (phase
II)

22. Purchasing Courses
• Model 1. Individual subscription
– $75 per course
• Model 2. School Subscription
– Teachers can take as many courses as they want for one
year.
• $180 per teacher (0-100 subscribers)
• $150 per teacher (101-200 subscribers)
• $130 per teacher (>200 subscribers)
• Model 3. Extended Professional Development
– Custom Plan

23. Purchasing Courses
• Model 4. Higher Education
– As a user of our courses.
• All of the above strategies can be implemented simply by having
students enroll at our site, http://ltts.indiana.edu. LTTS is a
resource to support your instructional and professional
development programs. We also support group enrollments and
offer volume discounts.
– As an LTTS consortium member.
• LTTS consortium members play an equal role with us in offering
LTTS courses, enrolling and mentoring students, and developing
new courses. Consortium members license the LTTS system and
can market the courses as their own. We continue to perform
system administration while you use the system to meet your
needs-including developing a new or enhanced revenue stream.

24. Contact Us
• Visit the LTTS site and review courses:
http://www.ltts.org
login: uga
password: uga
• email: ltts@indiana.edu
• Contact us to set up a subscription or to plan a
more detailed professional development effort.