Organizational Change

As the year progresses, I am constantly reminded of the difficulty in making headway in the technology use department. We talk about a lot of potential applications, and consider how useful they may be, but change is slow.

Organizational change is embedded with pressure to preserve the status quo. Of course, the status quo often proves to be the righter course, so this resistance is healthy in formulating more complete initiatives. There are financial pressures working against change and established practices that do the same.

One of the most exciting technologies that may be changing the power of technology in the classroom is Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, digital archiving, etc. Essentially, we can be using those technologies that students are using (IM messaging, text messaging, iPods, MySpace, Facebook, etc.) to meet them in their world of communication. Moreso than anything, technology has changed the way young people are communicating. I think technology can help bridge the "gap" between the digitial natives and the digital immigrants.

Recently, we debuted a new site for teachers labeled, Classroom 2.0 that can be used to learn about the various technologies that can be used for classroom use, as well as helplines on how to implement them. These type of things are springing up all over. I'm excited about their potential to change the way we communicate and teach in the 21st century.