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.

A tech agnostic no more: Google wins

I've never understood the hardware wars between Microsoft and Apple. While I happen to be most comfortable in an MS windows environment, I've never been fanatical about it. I grew up with a TRS-80, then a Commodore 64, followed by MS-Dos based machines. Now my laptop runs Windows 7, I have an iPhone, I'm comfortable experimenting with Edubuntu, and I use Google for most of my apps.

So I've been a little startled to find myself becoming increasingly convinced that one platform is superior to the others out there.

I've been struggling with how to explain why Google has become my go to tool for almost everything. This has become a challenge because so many of my co-workers and fellow teachers are more comfortable with Microsoft Office.

Thanks to a conversation I had while ago visiting another school to talk technology, I think I finally have the words to explain it.

I'm going to use the analogy of tools.

Let's say that Microsoft Office is a set of screwdrivers like these:

This is a very dependable set of screwdrivers. It will put in all of the standard types of screws very well. (Office, Excel, Powerpoint, etc...) I'd even go as far to say that there are no better screwdrivers than these.

Google's version of these tools is like this screwdriver:

Again, it will put in all the standard screw types. (Docs, Spreadsheet, slideshow, etc...) But it actually isn't quite as good. Sometimes the bits fall out, sometimes they get stuck. It does the job, but not quite as well.

If we were to simply do a comparison of these two sets of tools based on how well they put screws in then Microsoft wins hands down. The MS Office set of tools is better when it comes to making documents, spreadsheets, and slideshows.

Why then even consider Google?

Because you aren't limited to the standard set of screws. You can take those bits out and replace them with all sorts of other tools.


In my school we've recently added Read and Write for Google, we make use of TypingClub, and we are continuing to explore more and more of these additional tools that synchronize effortlessly with Google. If we want video calls we can use Google Hangouts. If we want to create blogs we use Blogger, when we want a system to share documents with students easily we can use Google Classroom, and the list goes on.

We haven't even covered how easy it is to share and collaborate in Google, which is one of its greatest strengths.

What's more I think that more and more tools will become available inside the Google environment. Google seems to be working with more of an open box environment which allows third party developers to easily bring their tools inside the Google cloud based structure.

For all these reasons I have become convinced that Google is the tool and platform that schools should be selecting now.

Of course, I might be wrong. Perhaps Microsoft will figure out what it's missing and manage to catch up. It's done it before. But today, right now, Microsoft cannot deliver what Google can.

The day I almost killed my sister

I was 17 years old. I had just gotten my license and, of course, I was driving the family car too fast. Heading to school in the rain, with my sister in the car, I came over a hill just as the light ahead of me turned red. Being inexperienced, I slammed on the brakes too hard. As the car spun out of control I remember seeing the intersection ahead of us full of traffic. Fortunately, the car slammed into the concrete median and came to a stop facing into on-coming traffic. While the front wheels were bent, the car drove just enough for me to get it off the road and into a nearby car dealership. I went inside to borrow a phone and call my Dad.

It's at this point in sharing the story with my students that I stop. I ask them what they think happened next as I called my Dad. I get a whole series of responses in this general flavour:

• You got grounded for life!
• He screamed at you.
• You didn't get to drive the car for a year.
• Boy was he mad.

Then I tell them what really happened.

My Dad didn't say much on the phone other than to check if I and my sister were ok. A short time later he arrived with the second car. I don't remember much about our conversation. I suspect I was doing most of the talking. What I do remember is this: My Dad handing me the keys to our second car and telling me to take my sister to school. There might also have been something about getting back up on the horse.

There were no punishments and no yelling. When the bill for the repairs arrived I paid for it. That was it.

It's at this point in sharing the story with my students that I stop and ask, "What did I have to do as a child in order to get my parents to trust me so much that they would willingly give me the second car right after I finished smashing up the first?"

I use this story to illustrate to my students the idea that we have relationships with people that take time and investment to build. The relationship with my parents wasn't built in one day. It was created over years. When they asked me to clean my room I did. When there was homework or chores to be done I did them. When I had to be home at a certain time I was. Not perfectly of course, as none of us is perfect this side of glory, but in general when my parents asked me to do something I did it. Each one of these interactions over many years was a small deposit in the relationship with my parents. So when the day came to make a gigantic withdrawal, my account with my parents was so full that it could handle a car crash.

I love telling this story to my students and I hope and pray that the message gets through to them.

Technology is not a magic bullet

I love the story of Barbara Arrowsmith Young. A woman faced with a bevy of Learning Disabilities takes them on and overcomes them through hard work and determination.

That's why I get frustrated whenever I read yet another psycho-educational report from another psychologist who throws technology at a student as if it will make their learning disability go away.

Imagine the 7 year old child who is handed a tablet in class and told to use it. If they were distracted in class already, this is supposed to be less distracting?

I hear time and time again this assumption that kids "just get technology". As if just handing them a device is all we have to do.

Students with learning disabilities will struggle to learn the technology well and may even be more distracted by the tool than mainstream students.

Do I mean to say that there is no place for these tools at all? Certainly not. But we need to be giving more thought to how and why they are deployed and we need to make sure there are the necessary supports in place for students to succeed.

We also need to manage parent expectations. These tools and devices will not make the learning disability go away.

A Culture of Fear

Whenever we have a few minutes to spare in class I like to do word puzzles with my students. Like these ones:

I was saddened today as I watched fear spread across my classroom. Students would not attempt to answer because they were afraid of being wrong. I could feel the change in climate. Only those students who don't have strong social skills would answer as they couldn't sense the change. It reached the point that I had no one willing to guess.

How do you fight against a culture that believes that only right answers matter?

How do we encourage kids to see that being wrong is how we learn?

I'm scared. It's the first day of school.

I wonder if the students know that I am as scared as they are?

I've been teaching for 14 years and yet I still am sick to my stomach about tomorrow.

Will I be able to connect with every student?

Will I understand what they are going through and be able to help them?

When the bullying comes, because it will, will my efforts to help work?

Will all the brilliant and clever lessons I have prepared actually work?

Will I not be boring?

Will I teach what these students need?

The worst part of all, is that I already know the answer to these questions.

It's "no".

Not every day, not every time, and not for every student.

But, through God's grace, sometimes, perhaps even most of the time, I will.

And so tonight I will pray, like I do every night, that tomorrow I will have what I need to be a good teacher and that God will fill in the gaps where I don't.

How I got fired

I've been fired twice in my life. One was more difficult than the other.

I've been working as the technology coordinator at my school for about 8 years now. When I got the position it was a breath of fresh air to my career. I was no longer a square peg being forced into a round hole.

At first my job was far more the role of cheerleader and salesperson. My job was to demonstrate, prove, and convince that technology had a role in education. I wrote proposals, did demos, fought for more budget, helped create curriculum, selected software and more.

As I succeeded at my job of cheerleading I began to spend more and more time maintaining and installing hardware and software. I enjoyed this part of my job too. I enjoyed solving puzzles and getting to that moment when everything worked for a teacher who needed it.

Eventually the cheerleading side of my job almost disappeared as technology became part of the lifeblood of my school. I was still enjoying my job, but difficulties were beginning to arise. I was blessed to have the assistance of a skilled technician throughout all of this time period, but I began to need his assistance more and more. He was only part time and just couldn't give it. I still enjoyed pulling computers apart, finding solutions, installing projectors, and all the other parts of my job. The problem was that the two of us could not keep up with the amount of work that needed to be done.

As the technology coordinator it was and is my duty to look at the overall health of IT in my school. I could see the difficulties we were having and it was my responsibility to look for the source. After lots of research, thinking, and experimenting I came to a difficult realization.

The problem was me.

I am a professional and skilled classroom teacher, but I am an amateur technician. Despite how much I enjoyed fixing computers, I wasn't that experienced at it. Something that would take a highly trained technician an hour to fix would take me 3 times as long. I didn't know enough about the many many options out there to find the most cost effective and efficient maintenance solutions. Nor did I have the time or inclination to learn. I am passionate about education, not technology.

I had to make one of the more difficult decisions of my career.

I fired myself.

So let me ask this question of you. Is there something you need to fire yourself from?

Paint and Grace

As I stood in that room that I had worked so hard to finish painting, I surveyed the walls.

In my mind I cataloged the many mistakes I had made. I could see every mistake, every slip. I could remember every spot I messed up. I knew that my work was far from perfect.

Then my wife walked in.

“It's beautiful!” she said.

That's grace.

Despite our brokenness, our mistakes and struggles God loves us anyway.

Our best efforts, our greatest triumphs, our most amazing feats will never be perfect.

But God loves us anyway.

I want my students to see that.

Paint and Sin

I stood in our bedroom surverying the beautiful walls in which I had strived for excellence.

This room was my act of worship to glorify my God.

But it was not truly perfect.

I could take you on a tour of the room and show you where my brush slipped and hit the ceiling. I tried to wipe it up, but I can still find it. I can show you the spot where I could have taken more time with drywall compound and sander to make it smoother. Or the spot where paint dripped from my brush and I didn't notice. or...or....or

I could blame it on the fact that I've never been trained. I don't have much practice, or skill. I could blame it on the contractor who was sloppy with the drywall. I could point out how I was running out of time and had to rush. I could make excuses.

It doesn't matter. Despite my best efforts it isn't perfect.

Even if I took more time, got more experience, got more training, found another contractor to redo the drywall, took the razorblade to the floor to remove the remnants of paint from the last painter, it would never be perfect.

Somewhere the brush would slip and it wouldn't be perfect.

It is the same for us, in all things.

I wish my students to learn the same thing.