WPP Part D - Findings and Implications 2/2

It’s been a week since I started using my new Google Site to manage the technology resources at my school. I see now that it’s going to be a slow process for some teachers and others won’t hesitate to use it. After showing it first to a select group, my next step was to make it public to all. I placed a nice banner on our Moodle page where everyone can click to visit the site and sent an email to every teacher and coordinator telling them the purpose of the site and to contact me if they had questions or suggestions. 23% of the teachers replied to my message and agreed to check it out.

It’s no surprise that the students, especially from middle and high school, were the first to use the site in a more consistent way. They come to my office daily to borrow school laptops to use inside the classroom. Instead of having to fill a paper form, I told them to use my computer and fill a Google Form inside of the site. They liked this method a lot more and I now I have a nice spreadsheet that I can later use to generate reports.

I am now thinking of placing another computer inside of my office that will have the site displayed during the entire school day. When students and teachers come for a technology resource they will use it to fill the forms and ask me questions if they have problems. For now, I’ve been letting them use my PC, but then I have to wait for them to finish… students frequently come in groups and I have to wait between 10 and 15 minutes until all of them fill-in the form. Maybe with time they will do this procedure from another place, but even then I would like to make it easier for all and offer them the choice to come to my office where there is a PC at their disposal.

I’m happy that the project is getting implemented as planned but it will take at least a moth for everyone to use it, and maybe more for the teachers to start copying some of its features. The main objective of the site is to motivate everyone at school to use Google Apps more. I’m happy that they are becoming more aware of them. The next time we have meetings or workshops I can use the site as a reference and they will be able to associate it when I talk to them about the different Google tools they can use.

The next time I decide to create a project that will serve as a model for some specific technology or software I will probably send an email to all the teachers prior to actually publishing it with a brief explanation of the technology behind it and the objectives of why I created the model for them. I noticed that only the persons that are already curious asked me how I did the site and took the time to read my descriptions. Others just went straight to what they needed and didn’t bother to ask. Maybe if I create some expectation beforehand they will be more intrigued about seeing the demonstration.

I think the best way of teaching something is by fist experiencing or using it yourself. I will surely make more projects using Google Apps for education. I know the more I use these tools with the teachers and students to make processes a lot simpler the more they will get motivated to use them themselves. There is still much to do, but my job wouldn’t be that much fun if there weren’t.