Getting the most from your tech dollar 10: Stuff without training is money wasted

Over the next few days, I'll be addressing some strategies school districts use to get the most from their technology dollars. See the full list here. Any budget stretching strategies you're willing to share?

10. Stuff without training is money wasted

How can you make the most powerful and expensive technology worth absolutely nothing? Drop it? Spill coffee on it? Let an eighth grader hack into it?

While those things do often work, a far more common and effective way to stress your educational budget and get nothing in return is to buy a new system, hardware or software and not provide sufficient (or any) training in its use.

The old rule of thumb for technology expenditures use to be: 1/3 hardward, 1/3 software, 1/3 training. I have never known a school district to come close. Technology training has three simple but important components. Every device, every application, ever system needs to come with instructions on:

• Why it is useful
• How to use it
• How to use it to support teaching and learning

If serious, formal training wiht teacher stipends, trainer salaries, and accountabiliy systems isn't a part of your technology budget, don't worry much about the rest of it. The shiny things won't get used well anyway.

Thus endeth the budget series. Aren't you glad? I am!

BFTP: Advice to vendors

A weekend Blue Skunk "feature" will be a revision of an old post. I'm calling this BFTP: Blast from the Past. Original post May 11, 2006.

A small task force of teachers, principals, librarians and techs from our district spent yesterday afternoon reviewing five different interactive white board (IWB) products. Our task is to recommend a "standard" product that will  be installed over the course of the next 5-10 years in all our district's 250+ classrooms. In other words, the folks demonstrating their wares yesterday had much to gain from doing well.

First of all, each vendor came prepared. Each took his/her job seriously. Each had a good product that had one or more unique qualities that may have made it more desirable than the other four.  But were I coaching these folks, here is some advice I'd offer:

1. Make sure you know your product inside and out and that it works EVERY time it's demonstrated. Seems like a "yeah, duh" piece of advice but one vendor definitely had problems, including a software freeze-up that required the computer be rebooted. Every teacher sitting there saw him/herself in front of 30 rowdy kids waiting in the same situation.  I am amazed at how often this sort of thing happens in tech demos. This like a psychiatrist who is trying to help a patient overcome his fear of snakes having a cobra poke its head out of his pocket.
2. You can't sell a product on:
   1. price alone
   2. software alone
   3. hardware alone
   4. charisma alone
3. Don't "over" demo. Each vendor had 45 minutes. One demo'd nearly the whole time, full speed, non stop. I was pretty sure this product would slice tomatoes and squeegee your car if she'd gone on another 15 minutes. While this was great fun to watch, I could see folks try to follow her rapidly tapping fingers dancing intricate sets of steps that looked nearly unmasterable by the average Joe or Jane. A slower "look how easy" approach may have convinced more teachers.
4. Don't be a smug or sarcastic or superior. Even if your product is great, we may sufficiently dislike you that we'll find reasons to buy another product.
5. Find a way to "connect" with the teacher in each of us. Whether sharing a "has it ever happened to you" story or a simple "here's a fun thing to do with your kids" activity, show you've had some classroom experience - assuming you have. If you haven't, share stories or activities from real teachers.
6. Be prepared to answer questions about costs - definitively. As long as it is taxpayer money, we will be balancing function and price, getting the most features for the dollar. It makes us mad if you can't be straight forward and immediate about prices.
7. Don't even bring up vaporware. How did W put it? Fool me twice shame on you; fool you once shame on me... or something like that. On a related note, if you want me to be a beta site (or first alpha site in the state or in the public schools), you'd better be prepared to make some huge monetary concessions. Otherwise, we will go with the tried and true.
   
8. Bring treats. OK, we  don't take bribes and even if we did, a couple doughnuts or a cookie won't sway us. But I'll bet there is a subliminal effect that the gift of food brings to such an event.

Were I a salesman and dependent on commission, I am sure we'd be living on the LWW's salary. I couldn't sell air to a drowning man. But if I were in sales, I know some things I wouldn't do.

Oh, do we make the same mistakes trying to "sell" new technologies or methods or materials to teachers ourselves???

So what ticks you off and keeps you from buying?

Oh, I'm thinking about the things I like and dislike about vendor booths at conferences like ISTE. Your thoughts?

Getting the most from your tech dollar 9: supporting 16mm film

Over the next few days, I'll be addressing some strategies school districts use to get the most from their technology dollars. See the full list here. Any budget stretching strategies you're willing to share?

9. Stop supporting 16mm film projectors (and other obsolete technologies).

The adjective obsolescent refers to the process of passing out of use or usefulness--becoming obsolete. The adjective obsolete means no longer in use--outmoded in design, style, or construction. - About.com

While these devices may need to be ripped from some teachers' hands, they are no longer viable classroom technologies, they are obsolete:

• 16mm films and projectors*
• filmstrips
• cassette tape players
• opaque projectors
• MicrosoftWorks and Appleworks
• any computer over 10 years old

and I would add that we should be phasing these obsolescent technologies out

• overhead projectors
• CRT monitors and television sets
• VHS tapes and tape players
• all desktop rather than web-based software

and it's pretty easy to see the day when these technologies are gone

• CDs and DVDs
• desktop computers
• printers
• cable television

I just felt a great collective shudder in education-land from those who use, value and understand how difficult obtaining many of these resources have been. They are known, they are used and they have benefited kids.

Budgets, however, need to be focused and they are best focused on technologies that still have a long lifespan, not propping up those that are dying.

 * One of the reasons that the transition from 16mm or VHS film formats to DVD or streaming video is tough is that many valued programs are out of print and no longer available in any format. What to do?

Here is my solution which you may or may not like ...

1. After thouroughly searching for a copy of the work in a newer format, convert the film to DVD or digital format. Warehouse the original.

2. Write a letter to the publisher of the work:

• Asking if the work is available for purchase in a newer format and stating your willingness to purchase it.
  
• Explaining that you have converted the original owned work to a new format for internal use within your organization only.
• Asking that if the publisher objects to this conversion to reply in writing within 90 days.
  
• If there is an objection, destroy the new copy.

3. Keep a file of any responses these letters generate.

4. Sleep well at night.