Online newsletters and journals are publications usually created specifically for the Internet or modified for the Internet. Lessons, instructional activities, and curricula are available online for immediate use, for use with minor modification, or for use as templates for lesson-plan development. Others, found in general lesson and activity banks, are not adult ESL-specific in design and would need to be modified for use in the adult ESL classroom. It provides lesson templates and guidance on designing Web-based learning activities. Staff development materials created by programs and organizations that provide off-line training opportunities for practitioners can increasingly be accessed online.
Web portals offer guidance and pointers to various professional development resources.
Challenges remain in the field of online professional development. Adult ESL instructors need more professional development on adult learning and language acquisition, ESL content, and multicultural instruction. Also, questions about the availability and quality of evaluation of online professional development have yet to be adequately addressed, as have concerns about the extent to which adult ESL practitioners are involved in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of the various distance learning models. However, advances in telecommunications technologies are rapidly expanding and enhancing the delivery of online professional development. It is difficult to determine which technologies will emerge as the most accessible, either in the value they will add to the delivery of online training or in the speed at which the supporting hardware and software can be acquired by users.