Self-Directed Professional Development

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Why teachers need to keep up with technology? Why don't we just let the students work with technology themselves and just give them assignments to do? Aren't they familiar with technology already? But how will we ask students do something with technology if we do not know what technology is available and the potential of it? Even worse if we do not know what might be the potential danger that can possibly brought about by the technology. So, learning technology continuously is a never ending effort that should be performed by teachers. It is part of their professional development (PD) as well since learning technology and how to use it will eventually enrich their knowledge, hone skills, and deepen their understanding of how actually students who have been immersed with technology learning today. It is important to always remember that without sufficient knowledge on how technology can be used in the classroom which very often offered via professional development activities teachers will never be optimally implement technology into their daily instructions (Skogerbo, 2013). 

Professional Development does not always mean attending standardized and official TPD hosted by government, or teacher training institutions etc. It does not also mean a site-based one that includes many teachers and scheduled rigorously to meet the expectation of the teachers on site.Yet, it can mean just a self-directed teacher professional development (TPD) (Gaible & Burns, 2005), initiated and conducted by the teacher themselves. The last type of TPD probably the most feasible one for us. Since, it requires only our will and intention to be better teacher. Through the use of technology self-directed TPD nowadays is just a click away. But how we can start our TPD? And what tools available on the Internet that assist self-directed TPD?

Check the followings:

1. Electronic Mailing List (E-Mail List) 
It’s a special use of email for delivering electronic mails to a number of email recipients that belong to a group. For example, if we are a member of an e-mail list, then we can easily send an email to members (that can be hundreds or thousands in number) of the e-mail list with one single click. In returns, we can also receive email from all members that is sent to the e-mail list. This email list comes in very handy especially when we want to have a special group on the internet and we want the group members to discuss things over the internet. What we can do then is just set up the group in an e-mail list provider, invite people to join the e-mail list, and we can start doing discussion online by sending emails.
Two examples of e-mail list provider that is well-known are Yahoo Groups and Google Groups.  In Yahoo Groups you can either start your own group or find e-groups that most interest to you. You can start you class groups, works groups, or may be your clubs' group. 

Now, you can try by clicking here Yahoo Groups , and search for topics/groups of your interests e.g: search for 'ESL Group' or "ELT Indonesia'. Once you can find the links to the groups join the groups by clicking the join buttons. You will notice there that the ESL Group is Public and therefore, needs no approval by the group owner to join. However, the ELT Indonesia is a restricted group and that's why when you click the join button you will need to be approved by the owner in order to be the member of the group. Once you become the member of the groups you can then start receiving emails from the members and you can also send emails to them as well. 

You may try other topics/groups that are interesting to you, you may try scholarship, technology or if you cannot find one you can start making your own group and inviting people to you group. What about Google Groups? It is just the same as the Yahoo Groups. If you want to try Google groups, all you have to do is just follow the on screen instructions and you should be okay.

2. Online Forum (Message Board)
In addition to the e-mail list, online forum is basically similar with it. It is also a place where people can discuss things online either directly over the web or via email. An example of online forum can be found here:
 3. Social Media
Almost every internet users nowadays probably is familiar with that term social media and have account in one of the social media sites. Social media is a place where people share and exchange infomation. It is built on the idea of web 2.0 that promotes the creation and exchange of user-generated contents (Kaplan & Haenlien, 2012). The social media is gaining more and more popularity today as a a kind of medium for social interaction and communication. It has been proved effective to attract internet users because of the features that social media offers. Some features are content sharing ( e.g instagram and youtube), micro blogging (e.g. twitter), social networking (e.g. facebook), professional networking (e.g. Linkedin) and also feature like mobile device friendly. 
With those features people in social media do many things like shopping, marketing, discussing, chatting, conferencing and still many other real life businesses. Using social media in education is not an exception. Check this video:
Social media for education


If we can use it for education that it means we can also use it for teachers’ education as well. Teachers can share and exchange information with other teachers in other schools through social media. They can do through e-groups that can be found in social media like in Facebook, Twitter, Path, Pinterest etc. All you have to do is login to those social media and start searching the intended group for example TEFL, ESL, TESOL etc and join the group. An example of how Twitter can be used for Professional development can be check here:

Professional Development Through Twitter


Or you may also create your own group there, see how to do it here:

Creating Groups in Facebook


In short, through social media groups, teachers can share their knowledge and exchange information. Thus they can always be updated with new information about education and teaching knowledge. People can share lesson plans, discuss ideas to solve specific problems etc. So, through online discussion in the social media groups, there will be no longer lonely teachers who have no one to talk to when having problem in the class. Eventually, there will be no teacher that will be left behind.
Another social media that are very useful for teacher professional development is video sharing sites like YouTube, TeacherTube, Vimeo, Schooltube, WatchKnowLearn, Edutube etc. Teachers can just subscribe to those video sharing sites and they will be updated with resourceful and useful videos for their teaching activities.

4. Open Online Course
Another alternative for TPD is open online courses where teachers can expect to get updated knowledge about education. They can also share knowledge, discuss on current ideas, and even get certification upon completion of the online courses. The followings are some open online courses that can be a good place for teachers for exploring about teaching knowledge. There, teacher can register and join the online courses for free:
  1. MOOC-Ed (Massive Open Online Courses for Educators)
  2. Microsoft Educator Network 
  3. Coursera 

5. Online Seminar (Web-based Seminar)
Online webinar is also another alternative for teacher self-directed professional development. Check the following sites for available webinars. In those sites teachers can join the upcoming webinars, or just watch the recorded ones. If you join the webinar you can get more incentives since you can post questions or share your knowledge with others as well:
  1. ASCD Webinars
  2. British Council Webinars
  3. EdWEB

To assist self directed Professional Development, I join on the Google+ community. There I post a discussion related with teaching English through online activities. You guys may join this community and can discuss it with me J
here the picture of my discussion there





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