Although I use technology in my classroom to great success, I don’t think I’d ever do a staff presentation for that very reason.

Instead, I try to work from the ground up, helping individual teachers do what they want with technology and letting word spread.

There are interested people out there who are ready to transform their curriculum, but sometimes casting a wide net can do more harm than good. The teachers who are most resistant to change are also the loudest complainers, and, even if they’re dehydrated they’ll spit out a gallon of water if there is one grain of salt in it. Often, it’s spit right back at the person who offered it.

That’s why I feel that technology changes have to come up from the bottom, never down from the top.

What Pam did was respectable and difficult, and her principal sold her out. I agree with what you told her.

You weren’t harsh enough. I get weary of hearing that educators are to be professional…truth is I’m not sure what that really means anymore. What I do know is that the administrator in question conveyed the least amount of professionalism one can demonstrate…setting someone up for failure.

Pam, get away quickly, offer little explanation, and learn from the experience. It’s one thing to work for someone who is ignorant of the use of something, it is quite another to work for someone who lacks character. You can’t change character flaws like this one.

This sounds like a principal who feared Pam and used her “power” to set her up and allow her to crash and burn. I would definately ask her for a meeting and confront the situation and find the principal’s reasoning for hanging her out to dry. If the response doesn’t contain the right logic or true sincerity … its time to walk.
How easy it is for a person in power to forget the reason their there . . . to provide best possible education for our kids . . . and in turn keep others down.
A sad commentary on education today.

The principal could have asked that everyone keep their mind open to possibilities as they gave Pam a fair hearing.

Teachers are being constantly evaluated; who critiques our administrators?

Second, Before I’d condemn the teachers out of hand, I’d like to know what tools she discussed. Did she have prior conversations with teachers to find out what kind of tools might be considered useful to them right now. Very nice to tell people about tools that they may investigate at some point.. much better to look at what they’re doing and seek out tools that might be used with what they’re doing today. Be relevant and responsive if you want good results.

Third, Remember that different teachers are at different places with technology… Your teacher who can’t seem to figure out how to use a pull down menu doesn’t need to hear about wikis or secondlife or tagging or technorati or ripping a youtube video to their flash drive. Remember to differentiate for teachers just like you do for students… give levels of utility so that people can buy in where they are.

Lastly, when was the presentation? Was it after a long day of teaching and a long meeting of reminders and details? Did it come right at the end of the marking period which is not the best time to use up teacher time? It’s pleasant when a presentation is upbeat, but was it long winded? Teachers who’ve been dealing with kids (and parents, schedules, administrators, broken xeroxes, end of the marking period dramas) want short and to the point… usable right now and demonstrations of accountability upward as well as downward.

Instead of being all upset because they didn’t love her.. or thinking it must be those mean teachers and that unsupportive administrator… Id’ ask: what could she do differently, what did she not take into consideration as my starting point?