Blog Reflection 1 - EDU 781

My perception of a technology specialist has changed dramatically since the beginning of the term. I have come to realize, that depending on the educational setting, technology specialists wear many hats. Not only do they need to understand infrastructure and educational technology tools, they also need to develop plans on how to implement programs and keep them sustainable for the future. I think one of the biggest challenges for a technology specialist is implementing a change within a school. While teachers may always want to improve their practice and provide resources for their students, it can be difficult to create change within a school. Too often teachers are "stuck in their ways." I have realized that technology specialists really have to design an implementation plan before proceeding with any change. I have been most inspired with the text "Switch." Understanding what motivates people and how to make the path to the change "smaller" ultimately will help any change come to fruition.

Keeping these methodologies in mind while implementing my change has helped me to see the big picture. This week I began to implement the change, however, the change has been slow to take off...thanks to mother nature! With three days of school cancelled it has been hard to make significant progress. With the time I did have with my students and colleagues we have managed to identify the five most common technology requests and began to collaborate on the troubleshooting guide. The guide has been typed up with the first draft of troubleshooting techniques. This week I plan on collaborating with the other classes that have not had any input and hopefully by the end of the week the guide will be available to all TSI students and teachers to use out in the field. Hopefully, we begin to see higher success rates with assisting teachers and less tickets being escalated to the Technology Department!