Introduction:

 

This was an assignment designed to create and then give a short professional development overview on a web 2.0 application.  I chose blogging as the web activity and I created a six minute digital story that I hoped gave the novice blogger all the information they needed to get started.  I called the activity "The Five Minute PD".  Yes, I know I said five minutes--however the digital story was already created and 'five minute PD' sounds much better than the alternate!

 

My target audience was educators and one administrator in the Middletown NJ school district.  The educators I chose were a mix of neophyte and seasoned professionals with very different levels of technical proficiency.  The school district we all worked in at the time of this activity did not allow student blogging so I was fairly certain that no individuals were currently using them in the classroom.

 

Educators were provided with an email that requested they click on a link to a website.  Once on the website they were asked to view a movie from either youtube or teachertube, then they were requested to complete a short survey.  The survey was blind--i.e I could not attribute the names of the educators with the survey responses.  Respondees were aware of this; I had asked them to be honest in their evaluations.   

 

My goals for this activity were to:

 

• Provide a definition of blogging
• Show how to get started blogging
• provide several examples of student or teacher activities that could be completed by blogging

 

My goals for the survey were to:

 

• Learn the parameters and limitations of the free level of service from Surveymonkey.com.
• Gauge the existing knowledge of blogging in the survey population
• Determine if the medium (digital story telling), the time frame (five to six minutes) and the delivery method (wiki link delivered by email) was conducive to a positive PD experience

 

The  email sent to the educators is reproduced below:

 

As part of a graduate level course I needed to create and field a short (five minute) overview of a web 2.0 application.  As part of the project I need to have other educators view the presentation then take a short survey.  The whole thing should take perhaps six-seven minutes of your time.

 

If you could, would you please click on the attached link, view my overview on how to start blogging then click on the survey link at the bottom of the webpage.

 

The link is http://beakerandflask.pbwiki.com/The-Five-Minute-PD-seminar-on-Blogging

 

When you take the survey--be honest--I'm not collecting names so you will be totally anonymous!

 

Please finish the survey by tuesday evening as I will need to crunch the numbers and create my final report for my class.

 

Thanks in advance for your help,

 

Kevin Jacoves

 

The Results:

 

Fourteen educators responded to my email and completed my survey on the first day it was hosted.  Due to an oversight on my part, I did not retain a tally on the number of educators that were invited to participate but I believe it was not many more than 14.  Note for the future--when issueing memos using bcc--remember that the saved version of the memo does not contain any of the addresses of the recipients!

 

Five questions were asked on the survey, the tabulated results are as follows:

 

Question 1.

 

 

This question was designed to see how familiar the audience was with blogs, and to determine how many were currently using them vs just reading them.  100% of the audience had heard of blogs, but almost 1/4 had never actually seen one.  Only 28.5% had actually participated in blogging by either commenting on another blog or writing blog posts of their own.  Based upon this question I would state that 75% of the respondees fit into my target audience profile of the first time blogger.

 

Question 2.

 

This question was designed to see if the respondees felt they had gained information after viewing the presentation.

 

  One individual who had heard of blogs but never seen one felt that they had not gained any additional information about blogging.  Clearly this PD failed this individual.  Two other educators felt they knew enough about blogging now to get started but did not see the reason to blog in their classroom.  78% felt that they had the information they needed to start and might/would create one to use in a classroom setting.  Pulling out the three people that were already blogging this still leaves 50% of the surveyed population believing that they were ready to create blogs.  I felt that this was very successful.

 

Question 3.

 

 

This question dealt with the delivery mode.  92% of the educators surveyed rated it good or excellent for the speed/timing of the digital story, sound quality and ease of viewing.  Clearly the asynchronous nature of the delivery method met with acceptance.

 

Question 4.

 

Question four asked if the PD was worth spending their time on it.  The results were all positive as shown below:

 

 

Question 5.

 

 

This question was designed to guage the audiences receptivity for similar PD stories on other web2.0 topics.  Top Two box scores for all categories were 42% or higher.  From this limited survey, clearly there is a market for a similar activities on other web2.0 topics.

 

Final analysis:

 

Based upon a review of my goals I believe that there is a market for this type of short, asynchronous professional development.  It is not for all, as this PD may not provide an authentic experience for those that have no experience in the highlighted skill.  However it may be a good starting point or awareness generator, and could be used to gauge the level of interest on various topics prior to planning more comprehensive professional development seminars.