Critical Mass

Anecdote Hour: Ok this won't be an hour but I'd like to relate back an incident that the CEO of Loucks'd took part in several months ago.

Setting: Computer classroom -not to be confused with the computer lab because there is no computer lab, don't get me started.

Major Players: I dunno some teachers. Our CEO was nonspecific.

Story: The school in question is adamant about at least appearing technologically advanced even when it is clear that there is a old school mentality to most of the teaching methods, especially when it comes to technology. The new teachers were supposed to have made websites prior to starting school but they -including our fearless leader- had managed to slide by without it thus far. A new web design class teacher had been hired and he had been asked to hold an after school meeting to help remedy this.

Our CEO has pointed out how sorry he felt for this guy but nonetheless the meeting was a disaster. The Web Design teacher had the brand new staff members open up Front Page, told them it was a now defunct program that no one uses, and then starts to teach them HTML. Well first he assumed they all knew basic HTML. Of the seven teachers in the room three were under the age of thirty, despite being new hires. Of those three our CEO was the most tech-savvy and he did not at that time have a clue what he was doing. Teachers are the worst students. They are nearly always inattentive, individualistic, and self-starters. That means they are forging ahead -in seven different directions- before the guy up front can evaluate where to go next.

The meeting quickly turned ugly and the result was that each teacher did the minimum, put up 1994 looking websites and the web design teacher was left micromanaging problems.
During the course of this our CEO discovered that the WYSIWIG iWeb could be uploaded to the schools server and he shut off completely. It was not in the interest of his time and energy to continue down this path. Now what went wrong?

At the very top, the school's brass -much like our government officials- are committed to the advancement of technology, but they (or rather those at the top), do not understand technology's quickly evolving state. They've tied this poor guy down to a teaching session asking him only to help the new teachers make websites. They were nonspecific as to what that meant or what that might entail. Further, because they are not comfortable with the advancing technology they don't know that there are dozens of ways better to set up teacher websites. A CMS would be wildly more appropriate for these teachers who are unknowledgeable and unwilling to make HTML language writing a hobby.

At the web design teacher's level -he's new. He didn't fully know what the school atmosphere was but more importantly he assumed that because he had been in the IT business for several years that those in the room knew more than they did.

At the new teachers' level, they weren't prepared to work hard. The meeting was poorly timed in the middle of the school year making them unlikely to respond well to the proposition that they take on an added responsibility and predictably they responded poorly. The result has been a less than stellar web presence on the part of the school.

Why am I relating this to you today? Our CEO was recently asked the following: "Why is web design knowledge critical for instructional technology leaders in the K-12 environment?"

As this anecdote should highlight to some degree, teachers everywhere are being asked to web design. I do not need to tell you -the cultural and technological savvy reader that Loucks'd attracts- that teachers need help. If they do not have a ready resource that can provide them with easy and adequate direction, they're not going to do it. The meeting I have made you privy to highlights that need.