CHAPTER 3: STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP

In chapter three, Schrum and Levin discuss the integration of technology. One of the key things touched upon in this chapter is how to understand the ways individuals deal with change and innovation. Another topic that was discussed was the role technology leaders in the school play in getting people involved and helping with the integration as well as assessing the technology rich lessons that should arise from new implementations.

We know that everyone approaches change differently; there is no better evidence of that than in a public school building. As new technology and innovations are adopted, educators implement these in different ways—some embrace and run with it, while others sit back and don’t want to have anything to do with the changes. The authors present two different frameworks of how people accept change. One of these frameworks is from Rogers (2003). Rogers characterizes people according to their willingness to adopt and use new technology based upon how much they are interested in it and how much value they place upon it. Rogers categorized people with those being most accepting to least accepting of change as “Innovators” (those who start the innovation), “Early adopters” (those who try innovation carefully), “Early majority” (thoughtful and careful but still willing to change), “Late majority” (skeptics who wait until the majority tries something new) and “Laggards” (critical of new ideas/innovations). The other framework for how people change was the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM) and its stages of concern created by Hall and Hord (1987). In this model, there are basically steps that persons work through as they build a context for thinking about change: Awareness (learning about the change), Information (getting more information about the change), Personal, Management (determining how I will use the change), Consequence (determining if this works for me), Collaboration (figuring out how others use this innovation), and Refocusing (what else can be done to make this better).

Finally, the authors discuss how important it is for those being asked to use technology to feel comfortable with it. They propose that it is crucial for professional development related to technology resources to be prevalent so that people will understand it, realize its potential, and make use of it. They also point out that those who feel more comfortable with technology are often needed to take a leadership role in their environments in order to help with planning and implementation of innovative technology.

I found the two models for how people accept change to be very interesting. As I sat and read this chapter, I could picture people in my mind that fit Rogers’ categories—it was pretty funny! I think one of the most important things that was discussed in this chapter was that you have to make people feel comfortable with something new before you can expect a great response to it. It is difficult for most people to jump in and start using a new technology with students before they feel comfortable with it themselves. It goes back to what we discussed in some of the previous chapters, teachers are having to adopt new roles, sometimes they are learning from their students. However, I think that they will feel more comfortable with this role change (or partnering) if they are provided a more comfortable foundation of technology understanding as well as the comfort of a “go-to” person when they have technology implementation questions or problems.