Time to Resist
Time to Resist
From the chat conversation within the Elluminate session, Brian (link?) poses the problem:
Brian: What do you think is the best way to implement web 2.0 technology in a resistant school?
@jonbecker: @Brian - what are the reasons for resistance?
Brian: People feel that it is one more thing to learn.
Brian: They are afraid of the time committment
My thoughts:
How many potential adoption conversations start and stop there, I wonder. I remember the very first time I presented about blogging in front of my co-workers. One of them informally asked me at the end of the session:
This is wonderful, but how much time does all of this blogging take?
True. Lots of time.
Now we may argue we are Professional Learners. Therefore, we are paid for what we do, namely, learning and modelling it to colleagues and students. However, when you are awake at 4 am out of a need to be sharing synchronously with folks you have been reading and desperately nodding to asynchronously for so long, something sounds as if not every one will adopt our practices that much. There are life priorities. There is time to resist.
Perhaps not everyone should. I am still struggling to achieve sleep/network balance. Yet, I have no doubts what I have been doing and learning satisfies me beyond description and I would continue doing it even if I am not paid all of the extra time. Just do not tell my boss (recently befriended in my Facebook), ok?
Being online since 2006 has turned me into a pioneer in the eyes of my workmates. I am certainly not the best model on learning time admin. I just hope that in future, these learning conversations and reflection mode underpin the practice of teachers. I imagine a day when the line between the scheduled Professional Development session and the engaged informal conversation afterwords is blur.
Now tell me,
To what extent should teachers change their time/routines to catch up with edtech goodness? Where do you draw your own line?
Picture credit
http://www.flickr.com/photos/monkeyc/112342184/
by monkeyc.net
Labels: colearning, colearning2009, conference, Scott.Elias, time
