Breaking out of the blog penalty box (next hiatus is a red card), I’m ready to hit a few more words through the goal of change strategy. Since I last wrote about creating meaningful change through the bureaucracy of school, my project has been moving forward very well, both within and outside the walls of school. After identifying and collaborating with an ally, I have begun on the next step of creating any meaningful change: assessing the need and possibility for change.
This critical step is what keeps you from working going through tons of effort to get a new program adopted district-wide with administrative support, only to see the program flop. Recently, there has been a rash of articles about unsuccessful change, whether through 1:1 laptop programs or web 2.0 tools. By analyzing the need for change, you can keep your fragile idea of the list of broken failures.
Assessing the need for change involves turning off distractions and thinking about why this change needs to happen. Though your mileage may vary, I highly recommend you set pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) and set your thoughts down on “paper.” When doing so, your goal is twofold: look inside yourself to see why you want this change and look inside the system and see why it needs this change. Use these questions as starting points:
- How are things done currently? (before the change)
- What is wrong with how things are done currently? (If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it)
- Why is this an important change? You only have so much time, spend it wisely Sure, you could advocate for all school meals to be virtually tracked, but wouldn’t it be a better use of focus to get a computer in every classroom?
- How do you want things to be done? When everything is done, what will things look like?
- How will this change fix the current problems?
If you have good answers to all the questions and are confident that this change is needed, you are ready to move forward in your change process. Plus, these answers have you prepared for the kind of questions which will come from the naysayers in your cause.
Once you have established the need for change, you must asses the possibility for change. Here, you need to ask yourself if the change will be adopted. You’ll need to take a look at the obstacles in your way and how you want students to use the new system, whether it will work or not. These guiding questions can help you along the way:
- How can this change be accomplished? (step-by-step list of who you need to talk to, what needs to happen)
- How much money will this change cost the system? (Write a negative sum if it will save money)
- How much time will it take me and my allies to affect this change?
- What obstacles stand in the way of this change being affected?
- What problems might there be in the changed system?
- What will opponents of this change have to say against it?
These can be hard questions to answer, but they help you in the long run. (Better safe than sorry) By knowing the obstacles, you can avoid them. I have put together the questions on a simple worksheet for you to fill out for your project, which you can download below.
Download the worksheet, including pdf, .doc, and .pages.
My Project
I am working on getting my school district to adopt system-wide Google Apps for Education. Primarily, I want this to be adopted so students can easily use Google Docs for collaboration. Far too often, we have network and file format issues which keep effective collaboration from happening. If you would like to follow along with my project, I regularly post updates to Twitter along with blog posts about the subject. Not wanting to be a hypocrite, I have filled out my own worksheet to come up with these answers:
Why
- How are things done currently? Students work on documents using Microsoft Office on school computers. To work on files at home, they email the documents to themselves. Documents must be converted to older formats for most students. Collaboration is done by emailing documents.
- What is wrong with how things are done currently?
- Students need MS Office at home to work on files
- Conversion to older formats is hard
- Students often have wrong version of file for collaborative projects
- Network storage crashes, meaning students canʼt access documents to work on them
- Why is this an important change? Word processing is critical to almost every class in school. Everything from short paragraphs to grad challenge papers are done with documents. The network storage failures inconvenience many students, causing them to lose critical time and turn in papers late. Collaboration is hard because group members need to sync changes.
- How do you want things to be done? Students should be encouraged to create, edit, and share documents using Google Docs. Every student would be given a Google Apps account when they enroll.
- How will this change fix the current problems?
- Students will not need any special software, just a web browser
- No filer conversions will be needed
- A single copy of each project will be stored on a web server, which all group members work on
- Storage is backed by Google’s network expertise and backups
How?
- How can this change be accomplished?
- Roll out a beta test to selected students.
- Convince key decision makers of the need for change.
- Present at a board meeting and secure vote of confidence.
- Work with techies to set up Google Apps
- Train students and teachers
- How much money will this change cost the system? savings of 1,000+ dollars
- How much time will it take me and my allies to affect this change? ~25 hours
- What obstacles stand in the way of this change being affected?
- fear of new technologies/web 2.0
- ignorance of need for change
- reluctance of support from techies
- filtering/access/privacy issues
- What problems might there be in the changed system? Students without internet access can’t access documents. Admins could lose some control over content.
- What will opponents of this change have to say against it? We cannot trust an external company with student data. We will not be abled to control students access. Students won’t have access. The service could go down, causing data loss.
What strategies have you found to be successful in creating change? What did you discover by answering these questions?
This is part 2 of a series on how to affect change within school systems. Part 1 was about finding an ally in change.
Arthus, a colleague and I just gave a conference presentation on Google Docs to a bunch of educators and they were pretty keen on it, especially the collaboration part that you are emphasizing. I’m hoping to have my presentation up on SlideShare soon with audio. I know you are way above me in terms of your use and understanding of Google Docs, but if it would be helpful to use any of the stuff I’ve prepared on it already, go ahead. I have the info on http://techprodtools.blogspot.com/ which is where I’ll post the slide presentation as soon as it is ready.
We tried to use all Google applications, so the slides are using Google Docs Presentation and we posted our links in Google Notebook and published it to the web and we used Blogger for our blog.
I hope that you are successful with your project, and I’m keen to hear how things work out. Cheers!
We partnered up with Google Apps at the beginning of this year. My reasoning for do so was similar to your’s with the different issues with Office. I wanted something to use in 7th grade that our students could use at school and at home with no worries of formatting issues. What we’ve received since then has been a bonus.
We started slowly with Google Docs by myself and another teacher going back and forth testing the school account. Both of us had our own separte Google docs account, but we wanted to see how tight the security settings would be on sharing outside of our domain. Basically, you can set the settings to no sharing outside of the domain to full sharing with no restrictions. I then uploaded all 7th graders and started using it a class at a time. It took off like wildfire. The kids love it. We (7th grade team) loved it. The ease of collaboration on projects has never been easier. Everything we do now we use Google Docs. We currently only use Google Docs, but we have Sites and Calendar also opened up. We will use them next year definitely.
Another plus to all of this has been feedback from our colleagues. We started talking about Google Docs and they wanted to know more about. We did some trainings, and they were the best trainings we’ve ever done. Everyone could see the potential of using Google Docs–from eliminating formatting issues to tools for collaboration. We got all of our Middle School and High School teachers uploaded and did two trainings with them. They couldn’t wait for us to get their students uploaded. We sent an email to Google for more accounts and got 1500 extra immediately. Now we have all students 6-12 uploaded. I know all of the students in grades 6 and 7 have used Google Docs and many HS students have as well.
I could go on and on about this. I’ve definitely swallowed the punch when it comes to Google Apps. It’s been one of the best tools I’ve used in teaching. If you have any specific questions, shoot an email. Good luck.
@jim: Wow! Sounds like you have had great success with Google Docs and Apps. I hope I can replicate that within my own district, but it’s not easy to get through to people. Particularly, the person in charge of IT is very resistant to change.
Who did you have to convince before making the initial domain setting/setup?
Presently, I have been testing the service with a couple of other students, using the team edition. So far, it’s been great. Hopefully, once we get administrative support, we can switch to the education edition.
I’m very lucky in that the Super. of our distict is very much for promoting technology use within our district, and our Director of Technology is also. Basically, I went to our Director of Technology with the same request as yours in that we have to do this for the students who do not have Office at home. It was some way that all students could have the same access. I think he was a little skeptical at first, but he set the domain up with Google for us and let us roll with it. He came to a faculty meeting that our 7th grade team of teachers ran. We did a quick session on Differentiated Instruction using the Presentation tool. We had the teachers work in groups, and had one person in each group set up with a username and password into Google Apps. Many of the teachers got excited when they saw their ideas going up on their slide and then saw everyone elses’ ideas going up at the same time–real time collaboration. Our Director of Technology was there to help us out but also to see how we were using it–he was sold. Since then, myself and another teacher have done 2 more faculty meetings and 2 in-service sessions on how we are using Google Docs and how other areas can use it.
For collaboration, here are 3 quick sells. First using Presentation. Set up a session with other teachers on any topic. Like I listed above we did Differentiated Instruction. Assign each teacher or group a slide to work on. We asked each group to write up a scenario on a slide where they would have to differentiate instruction in some way. We discussed and then gave them ideas and suggestions on the slide right below it. Our principal set up another presentation like this, but it was on making changes to our Middle School schedule. He then asked teachers to give comments and suggestions on their assigned slides.
Another tool for is the Forms tool in Spreadsheets. When I show teachers this tool, they right away think of number different ways to use it. We have to give goals for the next year to our principal in May. In years past, we’ve always written them up on notecards and handed them into him. This year he is setting up a spreadsheet and survey to fill out for this. He sends us the form, we fill it out, and Google spits it all into a categorized spreadsheet for him–too easy! Our 7th grade team also uses a spreadsheet as an “Academic Watch List” for several of our students. We all keep it up to date with grades from our respective classes. Now, we can see what everyone else puts in and how the students are doing. No more emails and waiting. When a parent from my homeroom calls to discuss grades, I can easily pull up the chart. I don’t have to say that I need to call them back when I get the information. The Academic Watch list has been another great selling point when we show teachers and administrators how we’re using it as a team.
On the Documents, you have to show how you can easly share your work with others and the comments. I had a Special Education teacher tell me that keeping track of his students’ graduation project research paper has been a nightmare. He always has to track them down, and ask them to show it to him. Sometimes they have it saved on our server sometimes not. I showed him how they could set it up in Docs, share it with him immediately, and then he could follow along and track their progress just by opening the document. His jaw hit the floor.
Finally, we had several teachers requesting hundreds of dollars worth of thumb drives so students could take their work back and forth from school to home. Google Docs eliminates that cost.
I told you that I could go on and on about Google Docs, so sorry that this got so long winded. As I said, I think I’m pretty luck to work for the people I do. My principal, Director of Technology and school Superintendent are very much behind us in using Google Docs. I hope there’s something here that helps you and your team. At least you’re exposing this tool to several of your students.
@jim: You certainly have found many great ways to use Google Apps in schools! I have used Google Docs a lot personally, but hadn’t fleshed out these specific applications to the classroom.
You’re very lucky to have such good support from administration! While our Superintendent is interested, he is still a little set in the “old” mindsets. Unfortunately, our tech director is even more so. Still, with some luck and support from the school board, we should be able to get Google Apps set up.
Just to clarify, I am not a teacher. I am actually a student and part-time tech assistant.
Arthus, that’s even better that you’re not a teacher. It’s great to see you taking the initative and pushing for change. Keep working at it. Show them the compelling purpose of why these changes need to be made. Start with some of your teachers and get them on your side. Good luck.
Arthus: I look forward to seeing the results of this. I’d love to be able to present a few working models (thanks Jim!) using something like Google Apps to our school system. Great thinking, and great job!
@Gnorb: Thanks for stopping by!
I’ll definitely try to keep you updated about Google Apps.
In other news, I’m applying for 9rules round 6 today! Maybe I’ll get in this time…