Thursday, May 10, 2012

Johnson Module 5 Blog


New Technologies

I was the assistant to the principal at a public high school in one of San Diego’s school districts when the district started using Outlook calendar to schedule meetings.  My principal used a calendar which she carried around with her penciling in appointments as she made them.  As her assistant, I got calls from the superintendent and other officials from central office, as well as parents and community members wanting to schedule meetings with her.  If she wasn’t in her office, I had to try to decipher her writing in her calendar to see if she was available.  If she wasn’t on campus, I had to go through a lot of extra steps to try and facilitate these meetings.  If this principal had used the calendaring convenience of Outlook, other district employees would have been able to view her availability and it would have made scheduling meetings with multiple parties so much simpler.  They would have sent her a calendar invitation which she could choose to accept or reject.  She could also have given me calendar rights so I could accept and/or view her calendar and act as her intermediary in these cases that came up a lot.  This principal remained adamant about not using Outlook calendar for the entire three years I worked with her.  Based on Keller’s ARC, I think this principal was not motivated to change from her comfortable archaic method of calendaring her appointments.  She saw no need to change, and did not perceive my suggestions as important or relevant.  I also think she lacked confidence in her technological skills and was hesitant to give up her pencil and paper calendar because of that. 

I was not an adult education computer applications instructor at the time, or I may have been more patient and used different tactics to try and persuade her.  I do believe she was one of the principals who was forced by her superiors in the district office to begin using Outlook calendar after I no longer worked there.  If I was working there then, I would have worked with her to show her how simple the program was to use, and let her see firsthand the relevancy of it.  I think if she had used it with me as support, she would have developed confidence in how efficiently the system worked.  She would have been able to see how much easier it made her work day, and with all her other responsibilities, delegating keeping her calendar to her assistant would have given her more time for other priorities. 

The way I presented Outlook calendar to her obviously did not capture her attention nor “stimulate lasting curiosity” (Driscoll, 2005, p. 339), but I could have done that by offering an after-school class to teach her and the other administrators how to use the program, then let them practice scheduling meetings on each other’s calendars and mine over a period of a few days or weeks.  This would have given them an opportunity to see the relevance of the program, and also given them opportunities to develop confidence using it.  I loved Outlook calendar when I was trying to keep track of appointments as a school district employee, so I feel confident had I known then what I know now and approached the subject differently, the result would have been not only the principal but her assistants and administrative staff all coming on board with using it to complete satisfaction!

Reference

Driscoll, M.P. (2005). Psychology of learning for instruction. Pearson: Boston, MA

2 comments:

  1. Hi Anetha!

    Like you, I love the calendar feature of Outlook. I wonder if your principal was so used to using the paper version of calendars that she never would be interested in an electronic format. Perhaps she was concerned that she would be tied down to a computer to schedule a meeting instead of simply penciling it in on her traditional calender. Fortunately, we now have tablet computers which merge the two types of calendars together. Do you think your principal would have embraced the functionality of an iPad with the calendar function, or was she completely hooked on the traditional form? Do you think it's a generational difference as well?

    Ray

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  2. Anetha,

    The implementation of a new technology can be challenging. That is why I think that it is so important to position the new technology properly. New technological tools should be positioned as something that will add value and make one’s job more interesting.

    I believe that many times the implementation of a new technology can become overwhelming if enough time is not given to learn how the technological tool works and is a big inhibitor to technology adoption.

    I think that the biggest reason why we are often faced with resistance is because of the lack of training and follow up. This lack of support can result in an initial negative experience with the new technology.

    Pamela Loder

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