George Couros:
For example, if you want teachers to use social media, how would a 50 page document sharing the guidelines actually help them? With every page that is turned, you lose teachers who just see that it is not worth it to go through all of the roadblocks to even start. Or the computer that takes “only two minutes” to log on because of network protocols. Yet two minutes, times 30 kids, can be an eternity, especially if one of those computers doesn’t work as expected.
With every page, every policy, every filter, many teachers just choose to do what they have always done and do not see it is worth the time to do something new. We encourage “risk-taking” yet we have created such a risk averse culture in education. We can say “take risks” all we want, but actions will always be louder than words.
Some really great points by George, here. How often we or our policies stand in the way of moving forward. My assistant principal Damon Hargraveshas a great technology philosophy that we should let those who are willing to be at the forefront run as fast as they can and spend our administrative energy bringing those up that are lagging behind. We still need to be wise, but we also have to make sure we are not the ones holding people back by our draconian policies.
