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Appendix F: Alaska's State Recommendations
Nine recommendations are made in regard to teachers and technology training in rural Alaskan school districts:
- Training should be provided within a curricular context with emphasis on integration of the application in an instructional format. Teachers will respond more to technology assistance that is directly related to something they are trying to achieve in the classroom (i.e., when technology use helps to solve an identified problem).
- Teachers who use technology should be supported by the provision of training or mentoring to more effectively link the software they are currently using or to expand their use of technology across the curriculum. Training for this group of teachers should be structured according to their individual immediate and future technological needs.
- Teachers should receive training or mentoring pertaining to the existence and use of Internet sites. Training may need to be coupled with improved Internet access, given that the present study shows that hardware considerations have some impact on the widespread desire to use the Internet.
- Older teachers should be encouraged to share their expertise and experience in the use of technology in instructional curriculum-related formats.
- Multimedia curriculum-related instructional presentations should be modeled to teachers during in-service training or mentoring sessions. Teachers' individual lesson plans should be used as content for multimedia presentations, with a focus on appropriate software.
- Teachers should receive specific training in and exposure to technologies relevant to the Deaf, for example, captioners, TTDs, web sites, videotapes, computer programs, and interactive networks. The enhanced visual presentations would have direct instructional value for deaf and hard of hearing students. In addition, general instructional strategies that teachers are currently using with deaf and hard of hearing students would be expanded upon.
- Teachers should be actively involved, as classroom and subject teachers, in the acquisition of software for school use.
- Teachers' schedules should include technology planning time. Teachers need the time to prepare, research, and share resources.
- When hiring, school systems should look for technology-literate teachers.
Pillai, P. (1999). Using technology to educate deaf and hard of hearing children in rural Alaskan general education settings. American Annals of the Deaf, 144(5), 373–378.
