I think that the scenario planning approach is a valid and useful one. The idea of preparing for a number of possible futures is a particularly relevant one for me, as I have seen strategic decisions that have been based on current and likely trends to make significant purchases for school ICT resources that have turned out to be shortsighted; an example being substantial funding going towards netbooks shortly before the widely rumoured introduction of tablets, particularly the iPad. This highlights to me how scenario planning in digital technologies is such a relevant process; change is happening so quickly; clearly strategies need to be in place to cater for this rapid change of pace in our world
I do see a potential disadvantage of scenario planning being stretching resources to focus on a range of outcomes, as opposed to focusing on lesser, and quite likely, areas of needs.
In my own context of social media, I am aware of emerging tools, such as Google Plus and Pinterest, that could potentially be more useful in a school environment that the two I am focusing on (Facebook and Twitter). Scenario Planning offers an avenue for for preparing for the possible implementation of the likes of Google Plus, possibly through the use of professional development on the resource to ensure that if the need arises, staff have the skills, knowledge and ability to implement the new system.
For my own needs, I will be looking towards the processes that are used to identify possible futures in the scenario planning process. I often go into situations with predetermined ideas (netbooks!) that I find hard to waver from. I need to be able to put my own thoughts. ideas and opinions aside to look towards more than the one scenario.
I use google+ and pinterest at my school for my students as i find Fb too ephemeral and problematics. i also use Youtube as a channel, picasa as a storage media and dropbox, vimeo and mainly google docs for school work. We all use google drive calendar and search.
ReplyDeleteWe had and have the same issues with Netbooks and the use of ICT scarce resources. All our students work goes to the cloud and they do not store data on our servers at school. nor do we mainly now - its all cloud.
There is a lot of money in NZ schools tied up in obsolescent technology, computer rooms running old prgrammes when all students have gone to ipads, laptops and mainly tablets and Iphones android devices
i think SP could be useful at school if we could get enough teachers to use it - which in my experience will be very difficult - often we resist change through fear of the unknown, pressure of time and workload and happiness with having learned and using older technologies.
#SP4Ed
Hi Tony
ReplyDeleteI find it astounding that so many schools cling to aging technologies, and avoid the likes of cloud computing. My guess is that people tend to stick with what they know.
Tim