WPP Part D - Findings and Implications 1/2

Today was my first day back at work from our Holy Week break. “Semana Santa” is a very big deal here in Guatemala; we have some very incredible traditions. If you’re curious about it, you can see some great photos in Flickr.

The Wicked Problem Project is almost coming to an end. Because of the break, I decided to split this last post in two parts, with the permission of my CEP-812 teacher, I hope! I just don’t have enough feedback yet and will surely have more at the end of the week.

I will tell you how today went. I introduced the Google Apps demo site first to the teachers that are more open to try new technologies. It’s always part of my strategy as tech coordinator: Go seek some friendly feedback and support first. Because there are some teachers that always give me a look that I’m sure means “what do you want me to do or try now?” If I tell them that others have already began using the software or tools with specific examples many become interested and drop the negative attitude.

I showed it to three teachers today. I was very glad when the first one asked me: “How did you do it? Can I do something similar?” A voice inside my head said: “Yey! It worked.” What I wanted was for them to see the different Google Apps in action and try to use them for their own purposes. With the second person, I found that I needed to add more instructions to the site. When she saw the calendars on the first page, she immediately started clicking them and wanted to add an event there, not going to the form that was on another page. The last person I showed it to was in a hurry. She wanted to schedule her class for tomorrow in one of the Computer Labs, so I showed her the site but I ended up filling the form for her. I have a feeling that I have to work on making it easy for teachers to access the site quickly, if not I might end up filling the forms for them.

Tomorrow I will show it to a larger group of teachers and also introduce it to the other Coordinators. I’m happy that there will be more order when it comes to scheduling and using different technology resources, I will be able to generate reports more easily and everybody at school will get to know and use Google Apps for education.