“Teachers need to integrate technology seamlessly into the curriculum instead of viewing it as an add-on, an afterthought, or an event.” Heidi Hayes Jacobs
Technology adoption is a challenge for many industries due to its rapid pace and constant evolution. In the education sector technologies are constantly being purported by corporations and organizations as tools to increase student achievement. The reality is that many technologies that are being sold to educational organizations are only as good as the training and implementation strategies that go with technology tools. Teachers are used to trendy initiatives that are not implemented that come and go frequently. There is usually initial resistance by educators concerning new technologies due to the consistent changes that take place on the educational landscape.
In a previous post in an elementary school last year I attempted to share with teachers the use of wikis in the classroom. I shared how I used wikis in my classroom. There was an interest by a few teachers and I attempted to contact the administration to volunteer for doing professional development on the use of wikis in the classroom. The principal was new to his post and was absolutely uninterested in this type of technology training for the staff. Due to the lack of interest that the principal had on using wikis in the classroom the teachers did not receive any training on wikis in the classroom. I changed to a different position in November last year and by February I was training all staff monthly on technologies such as wikis and blogs in the classroom, digital storytelling, podcasting, and cartoon creation. By the end of the June teachers in all the content areas and the technology coordinators in my current settings use wikis in different ways both in and out of the classroom. What was different about the two scenarios? The administration made all the difference.
Following Keller’s ARCS model (see below) in the first situation I could have done the following things and had a different result. First, I could have presented wiki integration in a formal way to first the administration and then the staff about how it could be used in instruction and provided peer-reviewed articles that reinforce the effectiveness of wikis in the classroom across content areas. That would have fulfilled the A (attention) in ARC. The second part is the R (relevance) and I could have provided personal examples of how I use wikis in the classroom, share other stories and examples of how teachers in similar situations use wikis, and conduct a survey of how students in my classroom appreciate wikis and present it to the administration and staff. The third step is C (confidence), and I could have a few teachers be trained and pilot the use of wikis in their classrooms to show the staff and administration how it can be used successfully in the classroom in this setting. Then the second part of C is to train all teachers on creating and maintaining a wiki in the classroom and have them track student survey and student work data to track its effectiveness. The fourth and final step, S (satisfaction), is have the students at the end of the first implementation cycle to reflect on their growth and uses of wikis in their classrooms. If these steps would have been taken there would have been a better likelihood of the administration and teachers motivation to use wikis in the school setting in different ways.
References:
Keller, J.M. (2006). What is the ARCS model? Retrieved from http://www.arcsmodel.com/Mot%20dsgn%20A%20model.htm
Learning Theories Knowledgebase (2011, August). ARCS Model of Motivational Design (Keller) at Learning-Theories.com. Retrieved from http://www.learning-theories.com/kellers-arcs-model-of-motivational-design.html
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Image 2 Retrieved from http://idtheory.pbworks.com/f/1271655312/arcs.jpg
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