Teach42

John Pederson posted a little entry last week calledOwning Contemporary Literacy…The Next Big Conversation.

In a nutshell, the question is how do we get non-techie teachers to drink from the Kool-Aid?

Ever have that frustrated feeling while out there blogvangelizing? “When do you have time?”, “I can’t possibly find the time!”, and “There’s not enough time to learn this stuff!” Yeah. Familiar. I’ve spent hours with individuals, only to find 3,500 new items piled on their Bloglines accounts when I see them the next time. Why don’t they get it?

Been there. Seen that. So what is the magic key to getting people on the Contemporary Literacy bandwagon? I wish I had the easy answer, but I really don’t.

I know others are going to look at it from the perspective of educational systems, but I’d like to consider it from a different angle. In order for someone to make a major change in the way they do things, they have to believe in three things: that they have the resources they need, the knowledge they need, and the value relative to the investment involved.

Classic example: How many people have created a web page in html? To do a halfway decent looking one, it takes hours. Then you decide that you don’t want a solid green background and that takes more hours. Then you decide that you want a menu as well, and that takes more hours. Then you decide that you want a Mail Me icon, and that takes hours to put in. When all is said and done, you’ve spent countless hours creating your site and 10 minutes putting content on it. The relative worth of the outcome doesn’t even come close to balancing out the time that you’ve invested into it. One more website that will never be updated.

So the question is, how can we get people involved in projects involving Contemporary Literacy where the worth of what they get out of it outweighs the investment that they have put into it, while ensuring that they have the resources and knowledge that they need to be successful. Does that sound simple enough? Good!

I truly believe in making things as simple as possible for people. I’m a firm believer in the Macintosh idea of hiding the choices that 85% of the people don’t care about. Keep it simple for the masses. Contemporary Literacy 101 needs to do the same.

Another quick example: Teaching somebody about Bloglines is easy, right? All they have to do is sign up for an account and they’re ready to go. Of course, if they don’t know how to bookmark sites, then they’ll forget how to get back. Even if they know how to bookmark sites, they may have no idea about bookmarklets, toolbars, XML/RSS chicklets, multiple feeds, folder organization, or why their searches for high school English only pulls up blogs from students whining about their classes. There’s more to it than simply signing up for the website. Quite a bit more.

Personally, I’m of the opinion that if we are going to get more people to start sipping from the jug o’ kool-aid, we need to remove as many of the obstacles as possible. Make it simple as all heck for people so they get the desired results without needing a geek degree.

I’ve heard people argue against this, saying that dummying things down doesn’t really help them. People need the background in order to really use the knowledge effectively. Ummm…. I respectfully disagree. That’s like saying you need to know how an engine works to drive a car. Car designers have made their product just about fool proof. Turn the key, shift into drive, step on gas. If necessary, turn wheel.

If we’re going to set our teachers up for success, we need to make things that simple for them at first. I’m an advocate for IT folks at schools going in to people’s accounts and setting up their toolbars for them. With a big ol’ button that says “READ NEWS HERE” on the browser bar. I’d even recommend setting up a group of great blogs, both educational and non-educational (I love getting Dilbert in Bloglines), and importing them into Bloglines for their teachers. Make it so all they have to do is go there, get their information and leave. Make it as simple as possible for them until they have their feet wet, see the value in it and have a desire to learn more.

Set them up to be successful, help them be successful, and let them bask in their success. Afterward, don’t allow them to be satisfied, build on the success. It’s a simple formula, bit it’s worked for me.

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