I once was put in charge of teaching my coworkers at my school how to use different delivery methods using technology. I was to show the basics of PowerPoint, Prezi, and Smart Software. I met with some of my stakeholders in a face to face meeting. The meeting lasted 3 minutes because they were all called to a discipline issue. The next meeting I set up was with less than 10% of my target audience. The reasoning was different, but most forgot or had another meeting to attend. I started to do more work thinking I wasn't grabbing their interest. I made an interactive PDF attached to the email I sent out, and even went door to door to make sure people were checking their emails. I was so excited I decided to make an online module using PDFs as my delivery method. In my haste I did not collaborate with anyone, and assumed everyone knew how to navigate my module. Looking back I feel ridiculous and ashamed that I tried to force feed people in the manner I did.
I had a version of the ADDIE process, that more resembled the DIE method [Development, Implementation, Evaluation]. To my credit, I did work hard on the modules. They would have worked if I would have done better on the other areas. I also tried my best to communicate with my target audience and did an effective job of making everyone check their emails. Outside of those two things, I did almost everything else wrong.
I did not involve all of the stakeholders. I should have included the department heads, and our district's IT guy. Our IT guy would have informed me that all of the school's computer's Adobe programs were out of date. He would have known that nobody would be able to view my modules. He probably would have updated the program in minutes to put on on track. The department heads would have informed me that Math and Language Arts have already chosen different methods months ago. They would not be interested in my project. They would also have enlightened me to the special education initiative to finish all IEP, IAT, and 504 meetings before state testing. That meant that many of the teachers would be unavailable during their prep period, which is when I scheduled meetings. So excluding all of those people took away around 92% of my target audience. So the few teachers I did help were very appreciative. However, I never got to the evaluation part due to a lack of motivation. What did it matter what 6 people thought, I was frustrated.
Had I done more Analysis I would have learned a lot more and saved time and effort. In this week's video they had an appropriate quote: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” I would have been able to “sell” my project better to the stakeholders. I don't think I made it clear exactly how this project was helping my target audience. Also including stakeholders more would have given me better ideas for my modules or other possible delivery methods. My biggest resources is the other veteran teachers around me that could have easily helped. I guess it was foolish to not include them, but at the time I didn't know better.
I am going to try another project this fall, and feel confident I will do much better. Already I have asked others to join the team and work on the analysis part of the ADDIE process. I have met with them and have pages of data that put us on track. We are now in the Design portion, and have a great couple of presentations we are altering daily to make better. We have included our IT guy, administrators, department heads, secretaries, teachers, and even the director of curriculum for our district. I am glad to have these classes to help.
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