Using technology to support professional
development in secondary transition: A look
into the Vermont model.
John Spinney
Transition Specialist
Vermont Department of Education
john.spinney@state.vt.us
How it all began…
 Winter 2007 – Vermont creates a team of interagency stakeholders to go to NSTTAC’s State
Capacity Building Institute in North Carolina.
 At the Institute, Vermont creates a plan for
increasing capacity with the major focus being
on effective dissemination of resources and
access to professional development using
web based technology.
VT Online Transition
Resources Timeline
VT sends
stakeholder team
to NSTTAC
institute.
Spring 2007
TRIPSCY online
transition web
pages are
launched.
Kansas University
online courses are
launched.
Fall 2007
Vermont
specific learning
module is
created by KU
Conference
in the Clouds
2008
2009
Transition
Learning
E-community is
launched (wiki)
2010
Implementation

Vermont immediately begins executing the
state capacity building plan (written at the
NSTTAC institute) in spring of 2007.

Vermont contracts with the state’s UCEDD
(CDCI at UVM) to build web pages within an
existing site at CDCI (TRIPSCY). TRIPSCY
becomes Vermont’s first state wide online
transition resource center.
Implementation
(see handout)
 Fall 2007 - Vermont contracts with Kansas
University to provide a series of online
professional development opportunities for
novice and veteran transition professionals.
This course has been offered the last 3 school
years: 2007-2008, 2008-2009, 2009-2010.
 Transition Seminar Series:
Each course below was a 4 week online course (see handouts)
 Introduction to Transition Education and Services
 Transition Assessment
 Family Involvement and Student Involvement in
Transition
 Preparing Students for Employment and
Postsecondary Education
 Interagency Collaboration during Transition
Planning
KU and the Self Directed Learning
Module
 In the Fall of 2007, Vermont also contracted
with Kansas University for a Vermont specific
self-directed learning module.
 The interactive module included a pre and
post test and took 3-5 hours to complete and
participants got a certificate.
 It is free to participants and is completely
asynchronatic.
The Conference in the Clouds
 Each year Vermont holds an annual transition
conference put on by Vocational Rehabilitation and VT
Dept of Education.
 In 2009 Vermont held this conference online, or “In the
Clouds”. We had 160 participants.
 This was the first online conference ever in Vermont.
There were 14 sites all over Vermont connected using
ilinc and webcams. The conference even had a
keynote speaker in Dr Gary Clark who connected from
Kansas!
 Workshops were placed on a PBworks.com wiki
Conference in the CloudsWorkshops
More workshops…
This was titled Secondary Transition Planning in Special Education
The Next level
 Vermont discovered that the wiki on PBworks.com could be the
medium to get information to the field quickly, efficiently and at
no additional cost. It was not feasible for TRIPSCY to do
updates daily.
 The wiki automatically emails everyone in the system when an
update is made!
 Vermont collected email addresses for all transition
stakeholders—now about 900! These stakeholders include
high school special educators, employment specialists, voc
rehab transition counselors, Post-secondary ADA coordinators,
parents, PTI staff, and many more.
The Vermont Transition Learning
e-Community is launched!
 This wiki has become the hub for all technical assistance and
professional development coordination for transition
professionals in Vermont.
 Information about upcoming trainings, webinars, courses,
modules, webcasts, podcasts are all posted here.
 Specific technical assistance on the transition planning process
in special education is all here. This information also links to the
NSTTAC Indicator 13 professional development website.
 The wiki has unlimited space for video and we also have
discussion pages where folks in the field can discuss
challenges and successes.
VT Transition E-Learning Community (wiki)
VT Transition E-Learning Community (wiki)
Announcements are added almost daily
The wiki can track visits as well. At the time of this writing there
have been 2482 visits since September 2009.
Thank You
 Thank you for the opportunity to share
what we’ve done. I am happy to answer
questions. Feel free to contact me
-John Spinney
 john.spinney@state.vt.us