In this blog post I will give my reflection to the project management podcast for EDT634. When I think of a project in my mind it is on going. Regarding project management the is a wrap up and closure to a project for a project manager. Especially regarding technology it would seem that you are continually revising or updating a project. This statement surprised me.
An example of a technology roll out for me was regarding an update to a grade book system. This roll out I guess was assumed to be transparent and therefore needed no training. Well for me I never had training to begin with and became frustrated again when I had to muddle through to figure out setting up new classes. Another teacher expressed that we did not have access to some options and when she asked it was like she saw something she should have never seemed. For me it is management no caring to see if training is necessary.
Pitfalls for my technology adoption plan would probably be not knowing what will happen right after giving students the computers. There is always unexpected hiccups when new technology is rolled out. But if the hiccups are bad enough it may lead to a sour feelings about the project. I think a very slow roll out would be one way to avoid frustrating a lot of students and teachers.
There is often an inherent assumption that teachers will just 'figure it out'. However, and this is why I we covered some material in performance improvement, there has to be a reason. If you can't explain why or incentivize the process, there is no reason why a teacher should expend time and energy to learn something new. In this way, I agree that management often takes advantage of teachers, or leaves them hanging.
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