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Essay / Analysis of the IREX Professional Development Program
The results of the study suggest that the IREX professional development program had a profound impact on the knowledge and technology curriculum of the participating teachers. Analysis of teachers' projects showed that teachers demonstrated better knowledge and skills. computers, mobile devices and the Internet at the end of professional development than before the program. Reflections on blogs, post-program surveys, video interviews, and communications via Facebook during the year following the IREX program documented many of these teachers' attempts to integrate their IREX experience into their curriculum and promote a technology-rich, student-centered learning environment. The IREX professional development program was effective. Not only did it enhance teachers' technological skills and practices in ways that supported technology and learning, but it also helped reshape participating teachers' views and perceptions toward technology and technological pedagogy. Additionally, the program was successful in introducing and engaging teachers to use mobile devices (e.g. iPad, laptop) and social media (e.g. blog, Twitter, Facebook) to create a virtual learning community to share knowledge, experiences and best practices related to technological concepts. integration in education. Developing effective teacher communities requires a lot of effort and time (Grossman, Wineburg & Woolworth, 2001; Stein, Smith & Silver, 1999). We are pleased to see that this learning community extends well beyond teachers' actual participation in the program and is still actively maintained and voluntarily supported by teachers a year later. We believe this reflects, to some extent, the quality and impact of the IREX program. All IREX teachers were from development...... middle of paper ... communications and collaborations. Responsibility for teaching and learning was shared by teachers and facilitators. During the 6-week residency program, teachers had numerous opportunities to actively engage in thoughtful discourse, support and challenge each other, examine and compare different perspectives, and eventually address and internalize their learning.3). Deeply integrated professional learning. BGSU's IREX program used a deeply integrated professional development (DEPD) model as a way to "replace one-off, one-way programs with long-term, collegial work" (Fischer, Hamer, Zimmerman, Samel, Long, & McArthur, 2004). , p.204). Different from common application-oriented technology workshops, the IREX program supported teachers by providing intensive, ongoing, collaborative and sustained training with effective modeling, mentoring and collective problem solving..