Sebastian Fiedler and Pam Pritchard are discussing why blogs are not implemented yet in every classroom. The discussion goes around the need to change learning and teaching cultures, resistance of teachers to "leave their comfort zone" and luck of funding for the new technology.

At the same time Sebastian Fiedler and me are discussing about selection of blogging tools for Quaerere group (choosing blogging software, blog pilot, and e-mail).

I believe that both are change management problems (known as diffusion of innovations in educational domain): we have a new idea, we believe that it will improve our work and we are trying to get others joining us. We are not the first there :)))

I want to have your attention for two pieces. The first one (source) refers to Rogers' Diffusion of innovations book that describes the characteristics of innovations that are more likely to be adopted:

Relative advantage - potential adopters need to see an advantage for adopting the innovation

Compatibility - innovations need to fit in with potential adopters' current practices and values

Complexity - innovations' ease of use will lead to more rapid adoption

Trialability - potential adopters want the availability of "testing" before adopting

Observability - potential adopters want to see observable results of an innovation

The second one is by Diane Dormant (1997, p.144). She writes about different stages of acceptance of innovation and suggests that strategies for each of them:

My experience from previous "practitioner" life is: if people are at awareness stage it's useless to push them using new things. I'm trying to follow these ideas with Quaerere blog pilot. I want to start small and simple, so people can try it out and see if there is something for them. And only after we could talk about hosting, costs and other things.

It seems that I'm getting the topic to write about for BlogTalk :) Anyone to join?

Dormant, D. (1997) Planning change: past, present, future. In R. Kaufman, S. Thiagarajan, and P. MacGillis (eds.), The guidebook for performance improvement: woring with individuals and organizations. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.

I'm not 100% sure if I can reproduce it here, so please let me know if I can't.

3:58:01 PM     

Un article et ses commentaires résumant les moyens de faire 'flyer' une communauté de pratique.

11:39:14 AM