Professional Study Team (PST) Feasibility and Interest Discussion

I've reviewed the requirements and guidelines for PSTs -- now we need to refine our needs and goals in forming a PST. Here's a brief summary of what we need to consider in doing a PST:

1. Consensus on our Topic. I suggest that our PST be titled "School Library Learning 2.0" or even my original suggestion of "Media Clerks 2.0". Depending on the class time we want to devote to this PST, we will have 23 Web 2.0 "Things" to learn. How much we want to learn, use, and apply these skills will determine the amount of time we need to commit.


2. A minimum of four participants are required to set up a PST -- I would suggest that we need at least 6 to make the final project manageable and meaningful.


3. All contact hours must be off-contract time. An example: We could meet once a week for 1.5 hours for the class time. .5 hour/wk could be spent individually, also off contract time. One suggestion has been that we meet for 1.5 hours, once a week, at different schools starting in January. Our class would be finished by Spring Break.


4. Our PST can be restricted to library media clerks as our goal will be learning Web 2.0 technologies and applying them to our specific job function in the secondary school library.


5. Professional Development guidelines specify that our total hours must be 2/3 class time and 1/3 can be individual work time (must be documented). The program on which we will model our PST is the Learning 2.0 program developed by Helene Blowers. A deviation would be that we would examine each 'thing' with an emphasis on how it can be used/implemented in our respective schools/libraries. If we concentrate on 2 'things' each week, we would need 12 sessions. Twelve sessions @ 1.5 hr = 18 hrs. 18 hours of contact class time + 9 hours of individual work time = 27 total hours. District approval would have to be obtained for this number of professional development hours. That may be too much of a commitment for you to make -- it depends if you want to gain more than 50% of your professional development credit with one class. Personally, I would want to make a commitment to this topic and aim for the higher number of PD hours.


6. This blog would be our communication medium, and documentation, of the collaborative efforts of designing and implementing this PST.

The structure of the PST would be:

• Weekly contact class time to be held at participant's respective school library computer labs. During this time we will learn about one (or two) new Web 2.0 topic(s) followed by Discovery Exercises to practice the new technology.
  
• Homework will include practice of the Web 2.0 skill, a networking application of the new skill (blogging will give us the forum for communicating ideas, questions, discoveries, research results, feelings, and new found skills), and contributing one practical way to use the Web 2.0 skill in the library. This will also serve as a participation log and reflection for receipt of credit.
  
• The final project will be a collaborative WIKI to publish the Web 2.0 tools learned, supporting resources, and application of the skills.

The application process, approval procedures, and documentation requirements can be quite an arduous process in setting up this PST. Before we start this process, we need to determine feasibility. Please provide feedback on the following items:

1. Given the above description, would you be willing to commit to this PST? If not, what changes would make you want to participate in this PST?
2. Given the description of the content, how many hours would you be willing to commit? What time of the year do you want to begin this class? What Day of the Week, and what Time of the Day would you be willing to meet?
3. Do you have a preference as to where the classes should be held? We could meet at one school for every session, or we could meet at a different school for each class. Schools should have the Media Station provided by DMS, access to the necessary number of computers and district network, and permission of the building principal and teacher librarian.
4. Considering that not many of the clerks frequent this blog (at least they don't post or comment), do you think a survey would be a better means of determining participation levels, topics suggestions, and details such as time and place? We need to log the collaborative nature of our design of this PST and the blog is a perfect medium.
5. What SPECIFIC requests, recommendations, or suggestions do you have concerning this PST?