How Can Web-based instruction support staff development issues?

If the schools within a district are geographically spaced by long distances or the ending day for schools occur at different times, then the district is an excellent candidate for web-based instructional inservice. A web-based instructional staff program can address these issues by providing a learning environment, which is compatible to the teachers needs and wants. The training and education that occurs, is structured to enhance the skills, knowledge, and competence in specified objectives. The learning is intentional, such as Exploring the Environment Through Image Processing (designed and delivered for a Northwest Florida school district). When this workshop occurs in the classroom, a person well versed in the techniques usually provides the instruction. When the instruction occurs in a web-based instructional format, the computer becomes the "instructor" and the "physical" teacher becomes an on-line facilitator.

A Web-based Instructional Staff Development Program

So how might a staff development topic be taught in a web-based environment? There are several different ways. Instructors can be separated by distance and the system is used in a synchronous environment. Facilitator and instructors meet in a chat room to discuss issues in real time. This is one of the more basic use of the Internet - providing real-time interaction between all parties involved in a particular policy issue. The players could involve principals, teachers, district staff, parents or anyone else when the issue at hand involves multiple parties. This technique is great to use when members are 40 miles away, the meeting starts at four o'clock in the afternoon and school lets out at 3:30 p.m. The chat can be formal or informal. Messages are typed in the "room" and anyone who is connected can see the message. This site provides scripting to allow everyone and anyone to have a chatroom on their own site, but allows no privacy unless the "room" is passworded.

Web-based training refers to a structured learning experience presented on a computer in which the instructor and learner are separated by both time and geography. Materials are organized around coursework and can include a combination of formal teaching and exercises, such as simulations, chatting, interactions with forms, etc.. Individual learners directly interact with the computer to proceed through the coursework. In an ideal learning environment, students are engaged through meaningful interaction and each student directs his/her own learning. As part of the instruction these courses often include some sort of assessments (see other topics on this site).

Web-based classrooms can be structured to deliver classroom-like events in which instructors and students are separated by geography only, but are working together at the same time. In cases such as this, instructors and students interact with one another by "chatting" online by typing messages so that everyone who is connected to the chatroom can see. The chat might be a formal one, in which an instructor "lectures" first, and an online conversation follows, or the conversations may be a discussion forum in which other students take the lead. There are software packages which allow instructors and students to be involved in a video conference, however the video quality is limited due to "net congestion" speed of ones Internet connection, and bandwidth.

At the most, the event includes an Internet broadcast of the instructor, a simultaneous presentation of a related visual, perhaps a whiteboard where instructors can write notes much like on a blackboard and all participants can see. Students respond with oral or written questions. Because the instructor and learners are on-line at the same time, the instruction is called synchronous.