Change, Resistance, GAFE, and I don't have all the answers

Early today a colleague at another school asked about how I dealt with fellow teachers in my school who were resistant to change. Particularly the adoption of Google Apps for Education. (GAFE)

This touched a nerve and I found myself writing a lot. While this blog post specifically references the change to GAFE, the ideas suggested here have a much wider application.

I wish I could say that I had all the answers, but I don't. Here are a few thoughts on the topic based on my experience:

• You, the IT leader, must make the conversion first. You need to spend a full year using the tool exclusively. You may not use Word or Excel. You cannot ask people to go where you have not yet gone.

• Once you have used it for a year you need to recruit one or two other staff, ideally informal leaders in your community, to make the conversion to only using the tool.

• Start small. Find a place where the tool will most definitely be superior to what already exists. Then make it as easy as possible to adopt. And make it indispensable. Be prepared to spend years at it.
• Here’s an example:
• For years we had a sign up book in the photocopy room where you could go to sign up for extra periods in the computer lab, Gym or other shared resource. The rule was that you couldn’t use the resource if you hadn’t signed up for it. But our school was getting bigger physically, we had portables, we had more part time teachers, we had staff who wanted to plan at home. All in all an ideal first place to deploy the tool.
• So I created a series of shared calendars in Google Calendars that would serve the same purpose. I shared them with everyone. Ran training sessions during staff meetings, provided video tutorials. And then I destroyed the paper book. Whenever two classes showed up at the lab, or gym, or whatever at the same time we would insist on pulling out the digital calendar and whoever had actually signed up on the calendar got it. When a staff member re-made the paper book. I destroyed it. When it was re-made for a third time I destroyed that one too. Eventually it became part of our culture. (Not everyone likes it, but it’s there.)
• Another example:
• Our principal always used to hand out a memo on paper each Friday for staff to read. It contained important information. If you didn’t read it you would be lost the next week. It took me a few years, but I finally convinced our principal to type it as a google doc which was put in a shared folder in Drive. The only way to read this really important document was to log on to Google and check it. That first year there were a number of frustrated staff who kept on being in the dark about things because they wouldn’t login to read the memo. That stopped pretty fast as they realized they had no choice. Now everyone knows to check the memo.
• A third example:
• This past summer I converted all the IEPs in our school to google format. (A pain in the neck, but it got done.) I took all the old Word documents and set them to Read only format. The only way to edit/work on/complete/read an up to date IEP is now to use Google. 

Have we arrived? Most certainly not, but I can say that Google has become part of the air we breathe at my school. Each day, each week, each month we take a step closer to where the transition will be complete. 

I killed the Technology Scope and Sequence.

When I first took on the role of IT coordinator at my school we had a beautiful, well developed, thorough, and complete scope and sequence for technology skills. It was laid out in an amazing document, with cross-indexes, tabs, and even colour. It was also useless.

It described exactly what skills were to be introduced, reinforced, and mastered in each grade level. It covered dozens of topics and hundreds of skills. It was the most comprehensive document of its kind I had ever seen. But teachers couldn't use it. It had so many skills they couldn't possibly cover them all, even assuming the teacher knew how to do it in the first place. What's more the document would be out of date within a year and would require constant updating.

So one of my first jobs was to make this document more relevant.

So for a year we sat down as an entire staff and tackled this beast. Using a single statement to guide us we cut and chopped and moved and edited. Each time we looked at a new topic or skill we referred back to that statement. If it didn't match we got rid of it. Many meetings and countless hours later we had a new, smaller, streamlined, and equally useless document.

I still have that document. It too is out of date and irrelevant.

So what's left?

The statement that guided us.

"Teachers should teach the technology skills they need to accomplish their educational goals."

That's it. No more, no less. No worrying about what they need when the graduate, or what they need for the next grade level. It all changes too fast anyway. Teach only what your students need in your classroom today. Tomorrow will be different anyway.