Four years ago, I was using Moodle in my classes as a way of bettering student discourse on controversial decisions in U.S. History. One of my students happened to be the daughter of the district curriculum director. My online assignments (and his daughter’s sudden interest in history) caught his attention, so he asked if I wanted to expand what I was doing with Moodle for the entire high school. I did.
That summer, I wrote a 196-page Moodle manual and trained 24 teachers how to use it. I thought that every one of them would find the same value in it that I did, and that they would all jump on board creating one big happy Moodle family. They didn’t.
The next year, two (maybe three) teachers used Moodle in their courses. When asked why they weren’t using it, the others said they didn’t have time, it was too difficult, or they just didn’t see how it was better than traditional homework. My one-day, how-to training session clearly missed the mark. These teachers needed real educational support and I gave them step-by-step instructions. They really didn’t get it.
That same year, the state of Michigan passed new legislation requiring that all graduates have an online learning experience [PDF]. Already having an online learning environment, we (my administration and I) saw ourselves as halfway there. All we needed was to get teachers online.
To satisfy the state mandate, the entire Social Studies department was required to incorporate Moodle into their curriculum. As a Social Studies teacher and the “Moodle guy,” I was asked to propose a plan that would get them ready for this new requirement.
I proposed that
- all teachers would need an LCD projector and document camera in their classroom to walk students through activities and showcase work.
- the department would need either a.) a dedicated computer lab, or b.) a cart of shared laptops.
- two days of workshop training would be offered the summer before to prepare their online classes for the year ahead.
With the exception of the dedicated lab (we were asked to share a new lab with the language department), we got everything that I asked for in return for using Moodle. I saw it as a win-win situation. Unfortunately, I was alone in this assessment.
While everyone in my department agreed to use Moodle so they could get the new technology, they didn’t all buy into the idea that doing so would benefit their instruction. And, since the summer training session wasn’t mandatory, it came and went with only a quarter of teachers in attendance.1
The year began with a warning that using Moodle was not an option; the new technology in our classrooms did come with strings attached. At best, some teachers gave worksheet and essay assignments online. At worst, the mandate was completely ignored.
They simply didn’t see how it benefited their students any better than paper/pencil assignments.
They still don’t. In hindsight, this statement was neither true nor fair. Several do understand.
A couple of months ago, the English department here asked the administration for document cameras and LCD projectors in their classrooms. They were given the same deal we received in the opposite order: they would get the technology if they used Moodle.
I found out today they turned the offer down.
As one teacher put it, “in order to get the technology, they had to make a deal with the devil.”
I realize there are multiple points in this narrative where fingers can be pointed: We should have offered more training. Where was the accountability? It’s the administration’s fault. It’s the teacher’s fault. It’s my fault. This sort of arguing gets us nowhere.
The upshot for me is that we screwed up. All of us.
Here’s my lesson going forward:
- Technology ought to be sold to teachers, not forced. The teachers, after all, are the professionals in their classrooms. If there is a tool that can help them do their job, then convince them that it can. Don’t force it.
- If there is no way to avoid making a tool mandatory (state mandate, etc.), you had better support it with human resources (i.e. an educational technologist or some equivalent). You cannot expect your teachers to flock en masse toward a technology that they don’t know how to use for educational purposes.
- Training must focus on sound education practices that can be supported by technology, not the technology itself. Teachers won’t use bells and whistles if they don’t know how bells and whistles can be used to improve student learning in their classroom.
If nothing else, keeping these three things in mind during technology planning will decrease the likelihood that your teachers will see you as the devil. And, that has to be worth something, right?
- I realize that mandatory technology use with optional training sounds a little crazy, but since the scheduled professional development days at the start of the year were already slated to include days of test data analysis and classroom methods training, there wasn’t much more we could do. And, between teacher contracts, unions, and teacher habit, you can’t force teachers to do anything during the summer months.
Sounds like very good advice to me. We started Moodling in our school around 6 months ago, and until two months ago I was working on faith alone that implementing a Learning Platform would work! There are now around 10 very committed teachers working with moodle, as after showing several staff the ropes they saw the benefits of using moodle to help deliver and extend lessons beyond the normal classromm boundaries.
Our latest moodle objective is to create flash based games for homework/revision/fun and create a series of Quizes for formative testing.
Getting any learning platform up and running can be hard work, as not all teachers will see the benefit, but for the ones that do, it has been one of the best projects I have implemented at our school to get the technical and teaching staff working together to deliver an ICT tool that really impacts on the staff and learners that use it.
I ended up throwing my plans in the bin for now, and work with staff in collaboration to help the system evolve, rather then trying to impose a top down approach.
I found it was better to give the staff that wanted to use moodle as much support as possible, as they were very succesful in showing other teachers the benefits of the system
So thanks for you very honest article, as sharing your experience made me feel better about or own evolving moodle plans
There are certainly elements of your own experience that I can relate to very closley 
Patrick,
Excellent post! I’m going to share it with other folks. We’ve had some similar experiences with Moodle. Fortunately for me, in our county/state there is no mandate that students have an online experience, so we are letting teachers use Moodle only if they want to, and letting the converted spread the word. I think it’s working nicely.
I have one addition, and it’s rather negative, but I feel like it must be said – even if you demonstrate how educationally sound something is and you’ve done everything you can do, some teachers are simply not willing to learn new things. Period. Or they hate technology and all things about it. These people will not move, no matter what, unless forced at gunpoint. Fortunately, this is a small percentage of teachers. You’ll end up eating your own power cable before you’ll succeed with these folks.
But tossing that aside, I think your advice is spot on. Nicely said.
Feeling for you Patrick. Unfortunately there are no quick solutions and we need to take a long term approach – which is really frustrating but important to remember.
There are a few factors that come into play when we ask people to uptake the use of technology. One aspect is change and change management. What we are asking people to do is change, and uptake of any change in an organisation takes time. Technology is quite a large change and realistically you are looking 5 to 10 years to effect that type of change.
Secondly people respond to change differently. Some enjoy change while others automatic response will be always negative because that is their defense mechanism to change. Understanding peoples response to change helps you learn to cope with these aspects.
Finally you have concepts like the Roger’s Innovation Adoption Curve and a person’s innovation adoption characteristic affects the rate of uptake of an innovation over time. What influences them to buy into the concept of using technology and what level of support they will require depends on which category they fall into.
Thank you all for your thoughtful comments. This post took writing a bit of background to make my point, and I’m glad you stuck through it to get something from it.
Looking back on my post a little less than a week later, I think I may have been a little harsh on my colleagues. Some really tried to get it; they really wanted Moodle to work for them. The point I was trying to make, and that I hope came across, was simply that forced technology without proper grounding and support in good pedagogy will inevitably fail.
@Tim I think you hit the nail on the head when you say that technology and teaching staff must work together to deliver tools that impact student learning. My case clearly shows that forcing technology from above without proper collaboration just doesn’t work.
@Richard There will always be those few who don’t play ball, and won’t play ball regardless of our efforts. My experience, though, is that the majority of teachers want to do whatever is best for their students. If they can be convinced that a certain technology helps their students learn, AND can be properly helped to use it, then they will.
@Sue Thank you for the link. I have seen Roger’s Innovation Adoption Curve before, but this is the first time I’ve looked at it in context of my personal experience. Informative for sure.