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How do you get buy-in on edtech from the school community?
5/30/2012 By:
School CIO Advisors speak out on community involvement
“Be visible and accessible.
As my grandma used to
say, ‘Be nice to everyone you
meet.’ Be the solutions person—
not the problem person.
Identify problems and tell
people how to fix them. Make
yourself the go-to person,
even if it isn’t in your domain.
Communication with staff, administrators, and
board members is important, but so is communication
with students and parents. Making them
feel included goes a long, long way in getting
people to feel like they are involved in what you
are doing.
Attend staff meetings, board meetings, any
meeting they’ll let you attend. Talk to people—
talk to everyone—about what you are doing, why
you are doing it, about how you will make things
easier and how they can help you do that.
Ask those same people questions about what
they need, what they want, what they’d like to
be able to do, about how they want you to help
them.
Share your expertise with them. Don’t make them
feel stupid—instead, make them feel included.
Including them in your plans gets them to want
to help and gives you the buy-in you need to
reach your tipping points for change, for money,
for whatever is needed to make technology successful
in your district.
Send emails with periodic updates or just a
funny anecdote about what happened when you
received your first shipment of 500 computers
and they came in 1,500 boxes.
It isn’t easy. It’s a lot of work, and your mouth will
hurt from smiling and being nice. But in the end,
it’s worth every ounce of effort.”
—George J. Weeks, director of technology,
Glassboro Public Schools, New Jersey
“Our technology department provides most of our
own staff development, and we require teachers and
staff to attend 12 hours of technology-integration training
each school year. Meeting monthly with our campus
and district administrators to plan and monitor educational
technology goals helps my department achieve
the buy-in necessary to meet our educational technology
goals. W e also have a site-based committee that
consists of campus administrators, teachers, students,
and parents that meets twice each year to plan and monitor our district’s
technology plan.”
—Terisa J. ODowd, technology director, Howe Independent School District, Texas
“I find key teacher leaders on campuses that I trust
and are willing to take risks to try new things. I ask
them to try some new edtech items and report back to
me but also share with their staff what they discover. I f
it doesn’t work, then it’s not worth it. However—if I can
show that the tool does work, will make learning more
enjoyable and engaging for students, and save teachers
time in the process—then I ’ve got a good chance to
make it stick. Any change is hard and takes some level
of work. They have to know that it’s worth their time and effort in the
long run.”
—Carl Hooker, director of instructional technology, Eanes Independent School District, Texas
“The community is very supportive of technology and
the students are interested as well. The community
wants labs and networks, but when we talk about integrating
technology into instruction they are hesitant. It’s
an interesting problem. The community is very tech savvy,
but getting people to buy into combining the two and
changing instruction is a challenge.
Every other year, we have a showcase to demonstrate
how tech is being used in our kindergarten through 12thgrade
classes. The students present projects that incorporate the use of
technology. The project does not have to be a tech project and the point is
not to show how great you are at using PowerPoint but to show how technology
allowed you to achieve a deeper understanding.”
—Rick Cave, technology director, West Windsor-Plainsboro
Regional School District, New Jersey