Develop Your Staff
printer friendly >
Develop Your Staff Archive >
Professional development activities that have proven effective will be included in Develop Your Staff. Your contributions are welcome. Send them to principal@osu.edu. Please indicate if we may use your name in the “contributor” credits.
Using Technology
The beginning of the school year is a good time to make a resolution to get really good at using the technology that you have never used before. Technology can be used to enhance your staff development and professional activities. Here are some ways to spice up your opening day meetings and professional development activities:
- Have staff members send in a couple of pictures of their vacations and assemble them all into either a DVD with music or a CD and play your own music to accompany the CD. Play it on the big screen with the projection device. This provides great conversation starters about what folks did over the summer.
- Keep the digital camera handy to chronicle the first few days of school when everyone is at their best. Make a CD and show it on a continuous loop on a computer at upcoming open houses or special events. You can also show it on a large screen in an entranceway as a way to welcome parents.
- Use music themes to celebrate (“Celebration Time”) or convey high expectations (“I Believe I Can Fly”).
- Use music to signal transitions with students. They can learn to associate certain songs with various transitional activities.
- Add pictures to your power point presentation to personalize the presentation and make it more memorable.
- Add movie clips to your power point presentation to highlight themes and again, make it more memorable.
- Learn to use your personal PC to be more efficient in your planning and scheduling. Take classes if necessary.
You will set the tone for your staff for either the use of technology or the avoidance. Our staff and students are watching how we embrace technology and how we hold expectations for the use of it.
