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Scenarios for Educational Technology Problem Solvers
Introduction -- Moving to a Problem Solving Mode
One of the benefits of visiting as many different school districts as we do (besides our nifty collection of airline swizzle sticks) is that we constantly are confronted with a myriad of problems faced by school and district staff as they work to make educational technology an integral part of teaching and learning. Sure, it would be easy to become more than a little depressed over the repetition of problems from one district to the next; but instead, we have focused on the fact that despite the uniformity of problems, each district tends to solve these problems in a unique way. When we hear these stories, and collect the "solutions", we end up having a rather fascinating collection of standard problems with amazing solutions.
It is often very difficult for school and district staff to move from a problem identification mode into a problem solving mode. Nevertheless, this shift becomes critical in escaping the status quo in particular if you are not exactly benefiting from the status quo. When we work with educators to discuss and identify "barriers" or "challenges" to their work, the discussion all too often ends up focusing entirely on the barriers and never moves fully into an exploration of solutions or ways to overcome the barriers. The activity we have designed around the following True Life Technology Adventures! is designed to move you fully into your best problem solving mode.
How it Works
Assuming the existence of about 3 teams, this activity should take about an hour from setup to report out from the last team. It might be possible to do it in a bit less time, but we find it takes about an hour to do well. The temptation will be to spend lots more time in discussion...but the facilitator should work to chanel this energy into a discussion relavent to solving actual district problems.
The Scenarios
True Life Technology Adventures! {tagline}
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Last updated, March 30, 2000