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.
