Rationale: Traditional technology professional development is used when there is a specific purpose and goal of the professional development. Even though it's considered "traditional," we attempt to personalize the professional development as much as possible.

Characteristics: Typically this professional development focuses on "whole group" instruction, for example, new teachers, or new products (PowerTeacher Pro, Hapara, Epson). The PD is targeted on learning specific content. Follow up support is provided to ensure that we support all teachers.

Pros: Using this targeted approach, we know that each teacher has the opportunity to learn the specific content. We provide training resources, videos, and follow-up support.

Cons: In all cases, some teachers "catch on" faster to certain concepts, or have prior experiences, so a traditional PD can be redundant. We have attempted to minimize this, but it still occurs.

Struggles: The biggest struggle is differentiated instruction while ensuring that everyone understands the material. Follow up, one-to-one instruction helps with this. In addition, having a pilot group (such as we did with PowerTeacher Pro) was a great option because teachers had an experienced resource in their department to assist with specific questions.

Rewards: Using this approach, we ensure that all teachers have the basic level training and access to resources.

Avery and Riverdale 2016

Teachers at the elementary schools needed some basic Google skills as more Chromebooks were being used at the elementary schools. As a result, each elementary school had a one hour, professional development to address some of the basic core skills teachers needed to begin using the GSuite.

Going Google @DMS!

We held a one hour professional development, Going Google @DMS, at Dedham Middle School, on May 6, 2015. The PD objective was to have teachers work with other teachers in a collaborative environment using Chromebooks, continuing to develop their own individual core skills with Chromebooks and components of Google Apps for Education applications. The session topics were developed by surveying and talking with teachers regarding their needs and comfort levels. The following were the sessions offered during this professional development session:

• Your Chromebook and you

• Files, Links and more!

• Google Classroom Chromie Newbie

• Google Classroom Curriculum Integration

The event was very successful. Below are some of the comments from our follow up professional development staff survey:

"I enjoyed working with my colleagues. Chris and Jeff were very helpful. A very student-driven and engaging lesson."

"Arianna did an excellent job explaining the Google classroom by making it easy to understand and very informative. I had not been to a PD with her before and was very impressed with her knowledge and support. "

"Excellent job of presenting useful material for organizing files."

"Well done presentation! The hands-on experience was very helpful."