Comic Creation and 21st Century Peofessional Development

How can comics provide an avenue for providing professional development?

Quite often we are teaching teachers, but not teaching them the way we want them to teach.
The goal was to use a different model to have teachers learn about technology, think deeply about content and become engaged.
This was based on a graduate level technology course. Many of the comics were created by teachers who didn't want to be there.

Why comics creation?

• Builds visual literacy
  
• Sustains interaction with content
• Enhance motivation
• Has potential for dual controversy
• Values multiple perspectives
• Appeals to males

It allows:

• a forum to voice concerns
• honest observations
• safer- non-threating environment that allows for expression, questioning

When you are trying to get teachers to break out of the model of teaching they way they do, you need a way in through the strong barrier that already exists. Decker, 2007, identifies a "Comic Pedagogy" which identifies these elements about comics:

• Sustains the question until the learning has a place of understanding
• Attends to complexity and discourages the search for the simple
• Embraces a 'punch line'- the counter-intuitive option

PD Structure with Comics

1. Choose a comic making tool
2. Partner on content
3. Start with a single panel prompt
4. Introduce an "in-service question"
5. Then try a multi-panel comic

Comic Builders
Comiqs- Online pc version of Comic Life
Bitstrips - school account available
Pixton
Make Beliefs Comics
Blabberize
Zwinky
Voki


Act 48 code: AL052162

A Spark that Ignites the Power of Learning Collaboratively

The Magic of Digital: Collaborative Interaction in Teacher Professional Development
Presented by Wes Fryer, Darren Kuropatwa, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, and Dean Shareski NECC 2008




Conferences are typically finite, but through blended professional development, the opportunity to learn continues. A tiny fraction of teachers are participating, so how can we increase the number of teachers participating?


Through Blended Professional Development- K12Online
It will be there when you are ready to go to it.

• Provide professional development credit for teachers for accessing the content
• show them the content- select an element and then share three things about it
• other people have dealt with the same issues that we are dealing with- having teachers from other countries helps teachers to understand it
• What are academic needs for your school? Develop and create your PD around it.

K12Online Shanghai- Jeff Utecht exlained his model for using K12Online as professional development with teachers in his school.
What did you learn through K12 Online learning- what were the learning points?

• Connection - 4 Saturdays in a row with his teachers- watch the keynote together
• Then 1 1/2 hours you could select any sessions within the strand you selected.
• Then created podcasts as a group about the experience that day.
• In addition was able to provide graduate credit for the teachers.
• International schools partner with US graduate school- blog posts,replies, etc. became the reflection necessary for the graduate course.

Unbounded Learning- not "Bell" Bounded

• Live events-Fireside Chats and When Night Falls
• Wes - Sustained conversations over time change us
• Live events provided some of the social glue that bind us together.
  

It is about student learning.
Part of publishing is showcasing work.

Learning how to learn yourself so you can analyze it and then teach your students how to do it.

It is all about people.

How do you plan to engage people in learning together?

How can the K12Online Conference be a stimulus to ignite learning with your staff?

k12online photo by Wesley Fryer on flickr
Skypetation by todbaker on flickr