CEDO 565 - Leadership - Week 3

Change, change, and more change.  This week's activities all revolved around change.  I liked it when my group member, Zac, said "Change is the only constant".  It's not a new concept but it was a good reminder.  As technology directors, trainers, or integrators we are after times the harbingers of change.  As we all should know from prior experience in our own lives, people fear change.  As the bringers of change (technology) we need to be cognizant of those feelings in the people we are bringing the change upon.  Understanding and empathizing with those feelings will allow for a much smoother transition.  During in-service days I was able to sit in on a presentation by Ian Jukes and he had an interesting underlying theme when referring to educators.  He used the acronym TTWWADI and it stands for That's The Way We've Always Done It.  That phrase seems to be all too familiar when we look at what's currently being done in education.  I walked into many classrooms last year at my school where we would politely ask the question of "Why?", as in why were they doing something. The answer often times included a lot of hemming and hawing and then something to the effect of "Well, I've been doing it that way for the last 22 years and it works just fine".  What those teachers don't realize is that for every year that they keep employing an outdated teaching method or curricular piece, they are creating more and more of a disconnect between themselves and the students.  The world keeps evolving and so should the way that students are taught.