EDC&I 552
Management of
Educational Technology Programs
|
Instructor: Prof. Stephen T. Kerr |
Office: 206E Miller Hall |
|
Course
meets: 212 Miller Hall |
Telephone: (206) 685-7562 |
|
Thursday,
4:30 - 6:50 p.m. |
E-mail: stkerr@u. washington.edu |
|
Office hours: By appointment |
URL: http://faculty.washington.edu/stkerr |
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Session |
Date |
Assignment for Session |
Topic in Class |
|
1 |
|
--- |
Introduction--class,
participants, Why management? |
|
2 |
1/12 |
Drucker, 1-3*; Discuss projects |
Management and technology:
21st Century imperatives |
|
3 |
1/19 |
Gardner, 1-4 |
PROJECTS – Planning for
scope and feasibility; Needs assessment; Staffing, managing, and evaluating |
|
4 |
1/26 |
Gladwell, 1-3 |
PROJECTS – Institutional
change and educational technology: Running projects in organizations |
|
5 |
2/2 |
Drucker, 4-6; TBA |
MONEY -- Finding funding;
Institutions and budgets; Grants and contracts |
|
6 |
2/9 |
Gardner, 5-7 Project
check-in |
PEOPLE -- Selecting,
working with, evaluating staff |
|
7 |
2/16 |
Gladwell, 4-6 |
PEOPLE -- Ethics of
technology-based work in education (intellectual property, etc.) |
|
8 |
2/23 |
Gardner, 8-10; TBA |
RESULTS – Evaluation,
replication |
|
9 |
3/2 |
Gladwell, 7-8-afterword; TBA |
RESULTS -- Internal
politics and public relations; Products and distribution; Dissemination
(presentations, conferences, etc.) |
|
10 |
3/9 |
Final project materials due |
PROJECT PRESENTATIONS -- Conclusions;
Hypotheses about the future |
*
Texts: Drucker,
Peter. (1999). Management
challenges for the 21st century.
New York: HarperBusiness.
Gardner, Howard.
(2004). Changing
minds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
Business School Press.
Gladwell, Malcolm.
(2000). The
tipping point. New York: Little,
Brown.
Course Rationale and Goals
Management is a more complex proposition than most
people realize. In the field of
educational technology, management used to mean: (1) organizing technology and
media service programs in schools, districts, colleges and universities,
business, industry, and non-profit and governmental organizations, (2) keeping
those programs running, and (3) finding creative ways to fund those programs to
do new things. But today, the role of
the manager in educational technology has frequently become that of a
"change agent," someone who can help her/his organization approach
problems of learning in new ways, encourage instructors to think of their work
differently, enable people to communicate more easily, change the way
information flows within an organization, prepare new kinds of educational
materials, and evaluate programs to see if they have achieved desired
results. There is less emphasis on
production of materials (although that may still be a crucial component of the
work), more focus on how the organization will use those materials or programs,
and how the work it carries out will change as a result.
The focus of this seminar, consequently, is less on
how to keep a program running day-to-day and more on how to conceive of and put
into practice new approaches to education and new ways of organizing educational
institutions that technology makes possible.
Doing these things involves being able to plan effectively, to manage an
organization, to use resources wisely, to hire, deal with, and supervise
co-workers, to prepare and manage a budget, to evaluate the success of the
projects one manages, and to communicate one's purposes effectively both within
the organization and to the outside world.
Being an effective manager for educational technology programs also
requires understanding one's role as an agent of change, knowing how people and
organizations respond to innovations, and reading and using materials in the
research literature on management.
Perhaps most of all, the educational technology manager is called on to
imagine new approaches to instructional problems, and to incorporate that
vision into programs that will be used successfully and enthusiastically over
time.
A word of caution is in order here: while this is a course on management, it is
specifically a course on management in educational technology. Participants should realize that there are a
variety of other courses and seminars within the College of Education
(primarily in the Area of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies) and
elsewhere in the University (many in the Graduate School of Business, the Evans
School of Public Affairs, the Information School, and elsewhere) that may be
appropriate in the event that you want to delve more deeply into any of the
areas covered here.
Course Content and Sequence
This course has a perennial problem. It stems from two features of management
literature generally -- first, most such literature on how to manage technology
projects is focused on a distinctively corporate,
commercial environment; and second, most technology projects in educational environments present special
problems that are only poorly captured by the literature on educational administration and
management. In other words, the former
(corporate) literature is dominated by images of how to improve the process of
manufacturing widgets in Ohio or deliver banking services in Singapore, and the
second (literature in educational administration) by images of how to implement
a new reading curriculum in a K-6 elementary school or how to
"privatize" programs in a state-funded university. While these are not trivial issues, neither
do they capture the special blend of creative design, desire for innovative
change, need for careful documentation of results, and problems of
implementation that are typical of settings where educational technology needs
to be managed.
There is no simple solution to
this dilemma, so we will meet it face on by working from readings that
come from a variety of perspectives, and by having you work on real projects
related to the overall theme of the course.
I have chosen readings that I believe have some relevance to key
elements in the management of educational technology programs. One of these is from the
"corporate" literature: Peter
Drucker's Management challenges for the 21st century; one comes from the
educational sphere (Gardner's Changing minds); and one (Gladwell's
The
Tipping Point) is a more eclectic essay on how new ideas get
disseminated through a culture. Each of
these works has attracted a considerable following, and each offers a
distinctive viewpoint on issues of change and innovation within organizations generally, and how technology in particular interacts with
those sorts of change.
As we read about broad issues of management and
organizational change, we will also discuss how these interconnect with
projects and problems in educational technology. The course calendar indicates a list of
practical issues involved in managing educational technology projects (project
development, funding, and evaluation; personnel issues, including recruitment,
evaluation, and motivation; issues of grant-getting, funding and budgeting; and
the significant question of how to act within an organization as a :"change agent," or consultant for change); we
may change this list if the particular composition of the class suggests it.
Requirements
There are four requirements for this course:
1. Readings and class discussion: You should do the readings regularly and come
to class prepared to discuss them (10% of final course grade).
2. Leading an oral discussion of the readings: At one or two points during the quarter, you
will be responsible for leading a brief discussion of the readings. This does not mean simply summarizing the
points already made by the author, but rather delving into the author's basic
assumptions and raising new issues and questions suggested by the
readings. This assignment will be based
on your ability to do these two things:
identify basic assumptions, and raise new questions relevant to
management of educational technology programs.
Provide for the rest of the class a one-page handout with your summary
of assumptions and set of questions (25% of final course grade).
3. Final project or paper: This should be based in a practical problem
of creating, introducing, organizing, running, or evaluating a program in
educational technology. The scope,
approach, and particular focus are up to you.
There is no set format for this work – it could be a traditional
academic "course paper," but it could also be a preliminary project
proposal, a working document for a project already underway, and staffing plan
or program for staff development around technology use, an evaluation plan, or
some other material that would be useful for your and/or your organization.
You will discuss your ideas for the project early in
the course, allowing me (and other students) to give you some preliminary
feedback; there will be a further opportunities for "checking in" on
the status of the project as the course continues. The project should reflect your real work, or
the kind of work that you intend to do as a manager in educational
technology. We will discuss particulars
and decide on the details in the first few weeks of class (65% of final course
grade).
In a seminar of this sort, class participation is
obviously of central importance. Please
make every effort to attend, to be ready to present and discuss your own work,
and to offer your constructive critique of others' work.
A Caveat: As a matter of policy, no grades of
"Incomplete" (I) will be given in this course. In the event of serious medical or other
emergency, please discuss the matter with me directly.
In addition to the texts, I expect that you will
investigate relevant related literature from management, organizational
sociology, public administration, educational change, and other fields. While I will post a reading list on-line, you
should share with each other and explore freely in the library and on
line. Be sure to tell the rest of us
about significant, interesting finds!
Throughout the course, we will read a number of additional
articles and short pieces that throw special light on the issues involved in
managing educational technology programs.
These will be distributed in class the week prior to when they will be
discussed or linked from the course website.
Please check with me if you are unable to be in class on a particular
evening to see if anything has been distributed that you need to obtain for the
next meeting.