Final Step

Bringing About Change

Positives and Negatives                     

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Planning the process of developing Professional Development to train teachers on technology has been enjoyable. I know what it is like as a teacher to be frustrated in not knowing how to use technology provided by the school or frustrated in not having the time to learn it to use it. My empathy has given me a new perspective as a Technology Specialist to be able to provide what will benefit teachers the most. It has been challenging scheduling the PD days just for technology training while administration has their own agenda. It takes a lot of communication and planning to make it work.

What's Next...   

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I am very excited about technology training and believe in its potential to make teachers better educators and performers of technology. I am so passionate about it knowing that a majority of my peers want this as well.

My next step in this process is to complete one more technology course to earn my Masters in Education. Though there are more courses to take to earn my technology specialist certificate, that may be something I will pursue in the future. I want to focus on doing what I am doing now, very well. I have just a couple of teaching years under my belt and want to become more experienced and skilled before mastering another area of expertise.

Technology Leader: Bringing About Change

Technology Leader: Bringing About Change

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What's It All About?                            

      Being a technology specialist involves a lot more than I expected. Technology specialists are responsible for so many things to keep the digital world going within a school. From the teacher standpoint, I only see the technology specialist providing us with equipment for our classrooms, fixing the equipment, and otherwise staying in his office. As I’ve learned over the last few weeks, there is so much more entailed in the job.

      Change agents must be leaders that are willing to stand up and create the change and guide others along the way. According to the KQED News article, “Coaching Teachers To Become Powerful Users of Classroom Tech,” there are many apps and opportunities for technology use in the classrooms, but teachers just don’t know how to use them effectively. Workshops don’t seem to be cutting it when it comes to teaching educators how to use the purchased technology (Schwartz, 2019). Something must change, and that is when the change agents come in.

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      Not just anyone can be a change agent. It takes a specific person internally or externally of the place of employment who can consult, train, and research the employees. According to Fred C. Lunenburg, Sam Houston State University, there are 10 characteristics of an effective agent for change. They are homophily, empathy, linkage, proximity, structuring, capacity, openness, reward, energy, and synergy (Lunenburg, 2010). Though most explain themselves, they are each a pertinent component to make the changes needed in the area of technology among peers.

      

Challenges

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      The most challenging component of being a change agent is satisfying the needs of the staff with only 4 training sessions (PD) in the first year. Additionally, it will require some serious organization to schedule and meet with each individual and review their goals and effectiveness in using the technology. If these individual meetings don’t happen, I feel that many teachers won’t ask the questions they need answers to, nor continue to use the technology they have been provided.

      Planning and implementing the steps in my proposal have been very challenging. It is very time consuming and requires cooperation with administration to fit my plan of meetings and training into the ones they already have for other purposes. Open communication seems to help keep everyone in the loop and make adjustments as we go along, instead of after the fact.

                                                                 

References

Lunenburg, F. (2010). Managing Change: The Role of the Change Agent. [Abstract].

           International Journal of Management, Business, and Administration, Vol.13(1), 2-5.

Schwartz, K. (2019). Coaching Teachers To Become Powerful Users of Classroom

           Tech. KQED News: Mindshift. Retrieved from

           https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/52648/coaching-teachers-to-become-powerful-

           users-of-classroom-tech.