We should start a campaign: SAVE OUR PD! I foresee buttons, placards, sandwich boards, picket signs…

I’m probably guilty of taking too narrow a view of PD. But since it is, as you said on your site, usually a waste of time, my preference is to increase the caloric content of PD, not turn it into a “mere” tech training session. I’m also probably underestimating the number of teachers who are raw technology neophytes.

I do agree with your larger point. We should tap student expertise. Several of my students took great pride in serving on a schoolwise “tech team” that essentially functioned as the school’s help desk, keeping PCs running in the classroom. And, given how we struggle with parent involvement in many schools, I could see creating opportunities for low-income parents to use school facilities and be taught be their children. Once you start thinking about creating ways for students to teach what they know, it’s not hard to come up with opportunities.

I appreciate the push-back. I always like it when folks stretch my thinking.

We have a large number of teachers who know little to nothing about these digital technologies that are revolutionizing our society. Many of those technologies could be powerful learning enablers in the K-12 classroom. Couldn’t students teach or co-teach – in perhaps a more formal, structured, purposeful setting – some of these technologies to educators? I’m not saying that we should put students in charge of PD, but it seems to me that there’s a lot of internal expertise that’s going untapped, no?

Sure, just teaching the tools isn’t effective PD by itself. But most educators would benefit from learning how to use more of these tools and it seems that’s an area where students could help.