Wow, Tim, can I publish this? :)
Thanks for sharing your experience and reaction. My comments are below.

The Technology and Literacy Discussion List <technology at nifl.gov> on
Friday, October 05, 2007 at 7:55 AM -0800 wrote:

>

>The questions helped me to think not only of my skill level, but also how

>well I am prepared to teach certain competencies. Looking at Technology

>Integration in the structured format helped me to really think through the

>competencies and understand both where I needed additional PD for my own

>understanding and where I could improve my preparedness to teach/train on

>these competencies. 

This was an important goal of the project, to make taking the assessment
an informative experience in itself. For some, the examples will be
important. For others, like you, who are experienced with technology,
looking at the list of skills and the categories does provide a framework.
I know in working on the development I learned about a number of things
that hadn't occurred to me before. For example, I knew about assistive
technology, but didn't necessarily include it in my thinking about
technology in the classroom. Including it came out of discussions with
colleagues that led to research and looking for good examples. 


>The questions also helped me to think about the

>importance of each as related to my work. While I have asked myself some

>of

>these questions before, the structure and progression really helped me to

>think it through in a different way and in some cases arrive at different

>conclusions.

Could you give an example of a different conclusion that you arrived at? I
think that was true for me too, and the biggest conclusion was that I
don't know as much as I thought I did! 

>

>

>I really like the way the results and PD planning piece are structured.

>While there are a number of areas I identified as good candidates for

>personal PD, the assessment urged me to focus on no more than four, a

>manageable goal. 

Yes, that manageability is really important. As Wendy discovered, if you
include too many competencies, creating the plan becomes overwhelming, not
to mention doing the learning. We encourage people in the instructions to
limit themselves to no more than four. Really one or two is plenty. Do we
need to communicate that more clearly on the page? We could actually limit
the plan to no more than four, but that would probably result in
frustration for some.

>



>And the concepts of the assessment and planning process will help me in

>looking at my skills and professional development needs in other areas in

>a

>different (and for me, more productive) way than I have in the past.

That's a great unintended outcome, I hadn't thought about that before. (Or
should I say - we meant to do that!)

>

>

>I also feel the

>competencies used for the TISA  are a great starting point for a state who

>may need to develop their own, or a good review for a state who has

>competencies developed for teachers. There may be several on the TISA that

>could be integrated into what a state has developed, and there may be

>some a

>state has thought of that would be good additions to the TISA. 

I'm hopeful that the tool will get used this way, I look forward to
hearing from any who pursue this.

>

>

Thanks for your thoughtful and thorough response, Tim. You've given me a
lot to think about.
Marian

>

>

>Thanks for listening,

>Tim

>--

>Tim Ponder

>Ohio Literacy Resource Center

>tponder at literacy.kent.edu

> 


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