In the Zone This Month: May 2009
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A Principal’s Role in Facilitating Technology Adoption in Schools: Four Essential Lessons
by Christine Murakami
How a school approaches technology and what it expects from its teachers are fundamentally important to successful adoption.
I have been professionally involved with computers in education since the mid-1980s, when computers were the domain of math teachers and we thought that everyone needed to learn how to program in BASIC. I earned my Master’s Degree in Educational Technology in 1995, have worked in educational technology roles both in secondary schools and higher education, and over the years read countless articles about what computers will do for learning. I’ve watched and waited for the time when technology suddenly makes that transformative leap and learning becomes more engaging, deeper, more fun, better, when there are fewer student absences, and less student disengagement.
What I’ve come to accept over these past 23 years in the field is that day is probably not going to come. Instead, with incremental changes happening over time, today’s classrooms already look very different from how they looked 20 years ago. Technology has already expanded from a handful of nonnetworked computers in a lab to numerous school 1:1 programs, ubiquitous Internet access, interactive whiteboards, and scientific probeware. E-mail morphed to texting and now “tweeting” on Twitter. Games gave way to online gaming, which has given way to virtual reality experiences like Teen Second Life. Blogs have surrendered to social networking on Facebook, recently with 200 million users. Even cell phones, despite some controversy, have found a place in some classrooms. What was once cutting edge is now commonplace, if not old fashioned.
The lesson? There will always be something new on the horizon. The only constant is change. And, what’s worse, because technology is constantly evolving, there will always be a struggle for time. Time to learn the new technologies and time to figure out if they have useful classroom applications, not to mention the time it takes to plan, teach, and evaluate any given lesson. People in the industry will continue pushing the technology envelope. Those of us in education are left in a perpetual game of catch up. We can’t hope to ever surpass the students, but we know we need to provide our students with a relevant education just the same. What’s a teacher to do?
As with so many other things in education, leadership is critical. How a school approaches technology and what it expects from its teachers are fundamentally important to successful adoption. Hiring practices, professional development, and expectations all play a vital role in successfully adapting to this much change. Though one could argue that the subject matter isn’t changing (the U.S. Civil War, for example, is still the same as it was 100 years ago), the way we teach and learn about it is, or at least should be, in a constant state of flux. A principal can and should help ensure that teachers are appropriately encouraged, pushed, helped along, and otherwise not complacent about learning new teaching strategies. How should they do that? Following are a few lessons that school leaders should take to heart.
Lesson One:
It’s not the hardware you buy; it’s how it’s used that has the potential to transform education.
The only thing that seems to have remained the same over the past 23 years is that there is consensus that you can’t just buy a bunch of computers and expect them to change education. Unless the teacher is on board, those computers are likely to sit in a room, unused, collecting dust. Technology’s transformative properties come when students use them to further learning. In order for that to happen, teachers need to be good guides and coaches in helping students to learn with the computers. Principals, in turn, need to support teachers, not just by purchasing and allocating the hardware and software, but also providing the time and resources for the training required for the teachers to learn the best uses for the technology. The general rule is to spend one-third of your money on hardware, one-third on software, and one-third on training.
I mention hardware and software acquisition with some trepidation. In today’s difficult financial climate, making any purchase is difficult, let alone a purchase that may or may not yield the improvements so essential to today’s principals. The competing demands of teachers, programs, and technology only leave difficult choices for a principal. Now, more than ever, technology expenses should be a priority, but now more than ever, those purchases need to be wise ones.
The take-home message for principals is:
Yes, technology purchases need to be a priority, but don’t stop with the hardware. Make sure that training and support are an important part of your approach to technology adoption.
Lesson Two
Groups are more successful than individuals when it comes to a culture change.
A single person in a single classroom can change the climate of that classroom, but that individual doesn’t have much impact on the culture of a school. When teachers attend conferences, we come back to school energized about the new ideas we’re going to try, but then reality sets in and pretty soon we’re back to our old habits. They are tried and true, and we don’t have any time to waste. A group of teachers working across classrooms, however, can start to make change. They can support one another’s efforts, discuss challenges, sort through issues, and know they’re not in it alone. If what principals are after is no less than a shift in the culture at your school, where learning about and integrating new tools into teaching and learning are the norm, you must create an atmosphere where this change is welcomed.
How do you do this? Send your whole school to the same conference and discuss plans for implementing what was learned. Have all your teachers take the same professional development course and incorporate discussions into every faculty meeting. Have every teacher sign up for an online course that supports technology in the various subject areas, then compare notes about commonalities. The bottom line is that a principal can set priorities for a school, and help teachers work together to achieve those priorities. Technology is no different.
The take-home message for principals is:
Change is hard and people need supportive colleagues in a supportive work environment in order to take the risks necessary to make it work.
Lesson Three:
Sometimes what seems like an unreasonable mandate can push change more quickly.
School leaders have the unenviable task of balancing competing needs. On the one hand, a school leader must keep pushing people forward while on the other hand, also sustaining a nurturing environment where teachers feel supported and not dumped on. Push too hard and teachers rebel, sometimes passively ignoring a mandate and sometimes actively making everyone else aware of their resistance. Don’t push hard enough, and you risk accepting mediocrity and stagnancy.
Here is an example. Three years ago, Columbus School for Girls (CSG) chose to adopt moodle as our online course management system. With major adoptions like this, I’d always understood that you start small. You let willing adopters try it out, then migrate it to everyone else after the first year or two, when you have worked out all the glitches. However, our administration had a different plan. At CSG, every class at every level, preschool through high school, was required to have a moodle page. That meant that teachers not only had to figure out how to use the tool themselves, but also what their approach would be with their students. A preschool or elementary level moodle page has vastly different purposes than a middle or high school moodle page. We created hundreds of moodle courses and spent most of our inservice time on moodle.
Although I don’t necessarily recommend this approach, it definitely worked for us. Our school saw full adoption of moodle in record time. Teachers were, for the most part, good humored about it, and it has become part of how we work.
The take-home message for principals is:
Know when you can push and get away with it. Pushing hard just might pay off!
Lesson Four:
Don’t underestimate the power of a good hire.
People tend to call us older people “digital immigrants” and call the younger set “digital natives.” Those of us who learned computers as adults are “digital immigrants” and will always “speak with an accent.” Assumptions are often made that natives (i.e., younger people) will naturally be better users of educational technology than immigrants (i.e., older people). The rationale is that people who grow up with technology have an easier time using and teaching with the current tools than those of us who learned them later in life. This doesn’t mean, however, that all young people are good at teaching with technology and all older people are resisters. Enthusiasm for learning and a willingness to try new things are not domains of the young. Some young people are very old fashioned in their teaching styles whereas some veteran teachers are on the cutting edge. This may have something to do with the fact that some younger teachers don’t have the confidence in their teaching to experiment, but the point is age is not a determining factor.
Here’s an example. At CSG, we have a French teacher who was faced with the school’s phasing out of all French classes. He “retooled” himself and is now our newest technology teacher. He is one of the most enthusiastic and voracious learners we have on our team.
The take-home message for principals is:
Try to hire people who love to learn and who love to try new teaching strategies. If you aren’t in a position to hire anyone, don’t let those of us who are older become complacent in our teaching strategies, and encourage everyone to work toward “continuous improvement.”
The bottom line
It’s not about the technology. It’s about being the best teachers we can be. It’s your role as a principal, to facilitate that growth. Whether that means providing time, support, encouragement, a carrot, or a stick, just make it happen.
Christine Murakami is Upper School Technology Integration Specialist, Columbus School for Girls, Columbus, Ohio.
