Table of Contents

• Holloway - Market-oriented dissemination
• Ely - Changing views about change
• Fullan - Eight lessons of change
• Belasco - Teaching the elephant to dance
• Gardner - Obstacles to renewal
• Ely - Conditions for educational change
• Links
• References

Holloway - Market-oriented dissemination

Robert Holloway (1993) conducted a review of diffusion and adoption literature and proposed the following:

• The majority of these studies are equipment-centered. They deal with the sales of equipment and other technologies, but do not discuss usage in the classroom.

• Results and discussions are presented in technical terms and in terms of potential, but they ignore context, specifically: "the economics of marketing technology to schools, demonstrated learning outcomes, and microlevel realities of classroom use" (p.1107).

• Surveys are over-used. They are cheap, quick, and easy but fail to provide sufficient detail to enlighten decision-making and they are often success-oriented.

• Technology diffusion in education should be looked at through the lens of the market model, a model used in marketing to describe consumer behavior and market forces. He suggests that the market model provides "the best causal description of educational technology's spread" (p.1110).

• It is the belief system of the users (teachers), not economic or empirical evidence of the effectiveness of educational technology, which determines the success of diffusion and adoption efforts. Again, this is supported by the market model's emphasis on consumer behavior, culture, values, norms, and beliefs.

• While administrators apparently see technology as critical, teachers seem to be more concerned with learning (as well they should). This sets the stage for a clash of belief systems.

• "Education is clearly a secondary or tertiary market" (p.1111). All educational technologies, except the overhead projector (which he says was developed for military trainers), have been transferred from other primary and secondary sectors and markets with little or no adaptation.

• Compared to the commercial sector, education is a small technology market (cites 10:1 relationship in terms of dollars spent on technology). Significant adaptations are not possible given the cost constraint.

• If users (teachers) are not able to specify modifications that will make the technology more useful within their contexts, they may be less likely to adopt it.

Ely - Changing views about change

Ely (1997) suggests that regardless of whether it is seen through the lens of diffusion (Rogers, 1983), marketing (Kanter, 1983), or organizational development (Miles & Eckholm, 1985), the goal of dissemination is still the same: inform, promote, and change.

Ely posits that the true litnus test of change is the degree to which the innovation has been institutionalized, i.e. has become integrated into the organization and is no longer considered an innovation. In order to do this, he suggests, evaluation and dissemination processes need to be closely linked and included throughout the design and development process.

Ely chronicles several shifts in our understanding of change:

• From institutional to individual - In the 60s and 70s, change was seen to need collective action in order to be successful, which resulted in a top-down orientation of most change efforts. However, Rogers (1962) proposed a more central role for the individual and even coined special terms for different change characters: opinion leaders, early adopters, late adopters, and laggards. This emphasis on the individual highlights the importance of bottom-up change processes.

• From behaviorist to constructivist - Early change models focused on changing behaviors to meet the objectives of the innovation. After all, how can an innovation succeed if everyone does not adopt it in the same way? However, the reality is that adopters modify innovations to meet their contextual needs. Even when no local socio-cultural factors are in play, people still transform ideas to fit more closely with their own values, prior experience, and beliefs.

• From replication to mutual adaptation - Early behaviorist models focused on replicating results. However, as we have realized the mediating role of individuals, there has been more emphasis on mutual adaptation of innovations. For example, the developer takes time to find out from users how the product can be modified to make it more useful to those users.

Fullan - Eight lessons of change

Fullan (1993) suggests that complexity, dynamism, and unpredictability are not merely barriers to change, they are normal in most human activity. "There are fundamental reasons why controlling strategies don't work. The underlying one is that the change process is uncontrollably complex, and in many cases unknowable" (p.19). Unplanned factors constantly interfere to create a situation of dynamic complexity in which cause and effect are too far apart for accurate predictions to be made.

Bad solutions to complex problems, Fullan asserts, nearly always make things worse than if no solution had been applied. Productive change effort is the continuing search for understanding with the knowledge that there is no ultimate answer, no certainty. He couches this within the framework of Senge's work and systems theory and proposes eight basic lessons of the new paradigm of change:

• Lesson 1: You can't mandate what matters (The more complex the system, the less you can force it)

• Lesson 2: Change is a journey not a blueprint (Change is non-linear, loaded with uncertainty and excitement and sometimes perverse)
  

• Lesson 3: Problems are out friends (Problems are inevitable and you can't learn without them)
  

• Lesson 4: Vision and strategic planning come later (Premature visions and planning blind)
  

• Lesson 5: Individualism and collectivism must have equal power (There are no one-sided solutions to isolation and groupthink)
  

• Lesson 6: Neither centralization nor decentralization works (Both top-down and bottom-up strategies are necessary)
  

• Lesson 7: Connection with the wider environment is critical for success (The best organizations learn externally as well as internally)
  

• Lesson 8: Every person is a change agent (Change is too important to leave to the experts, personal mind set and master is the ultimate protection) (p. 21-22)

Belasco - Teaching the elephant to dance

Organizations are like elephants, Belasco (1991) suggests, they are slow to change. Organizations are invisibly bound to conditions that limit their movement (as exemplified by comments like: "That's the way it's always been done").

Contrary to traditional beliefs, Belasco asserts that the need for change does not necessarily produce change. Indeed, he cites several examples of corporations that have thrown money at problems without really changing the status quo. Empowering change starts with a vision of the desired state and involves significant participation from employees throughout the organization. "Flexible bands of disciplined people focused tightly on a vision: that's the key to success in the jungles of Vietnam, the sands of Iran, and the marketplace" (p. 174).

Belasco posits that there are 5 potential obstacles to change:

• It always takes longer than expected
  

• Exaggerated expectations: Everybody wants everything now
  

• Carping skeptics
  

• Procrastination
  

• Imperfection (p. 31)

Gardner - Obstacles to renewal

Like Belasco (1991), Gardner (1981) represents the sentiment that positive change is often held back by the mental shackles of our past experiences, i.e., that the present is overburdened by the past. In particular, he emphasizes the role of methods, expertise, and possessions in reducing our ability to renew ourselves.
Our inability to reach for change stems from a reluctance to abandon what has already been created, namely, the methods we know and cherish.

" How it is done becomes more important than whether it is done. Means triumphs over ends. Form triumphs over spirit. Method is enthroned. Men become prisoners of their procedures, and organizations that were designed to achieve some goal become obstacles in the path to that goal" (p. 47).

Gardner also cites connoisseurship as a potential obstacle to renewal. Insofar as a connoisseur embodies all of the expertise of a particular method, the individual is shackled to a framework embedded in past practice. Ironically, society values connoisseurship and expertise, as evidenced by the number of sons and daughters that are sent to universities to be indoctrinated in the established methods. In that process of becoming an expert, however, creativity is suppressed. Gardner suggests that:

"People long for a time when impulse was not smothered by rules and dissipated in adherence to elaborate procedures… when such discriminations were unimportant and simple, uncomplicated values prevailed" (p. 50).

Another source of restraint for renewal comes from our general obsession with possessions. Gardner posits that a preoccupation with conserving what one possesses (property, reputation, money, etc.), and the obligations that come with those things, prevents one from acting flexibly and taking risks. Rather than basing one's life on having things, Gardner suggests, people should focus more on doing and being.

This same advice applies to organizations. Rather than constraining a company's future with concerns over maintaining expensive capital assets or maintaining a certain conservative image, it should focus on creating flexibility and an environment of risk taking.

The problem with specialists is that they fear the loss of their reputations that may come with venturing beyond their areas of expertise. "Indeed, this fear is the greatest obstacle to intellectual breadth in the scholarly world" (p.52).

Ely - Conditions for educational change

Ely (1999) recaps the eight conditions that facilitate the implementation of educational technology innovation, which he originally published in 1990.

1. Dissatisfaction with the status quo
   

2. Existence of knowledge and skills… required of the user of the innovation
   

3. Availability of resources (hardware, software, teaching materials, funding, etc.)
   

4. Availability of time
   

5. Rewards or incentives exist
   

6. Participation… shared decision making, communication among all parties involved, full representation of ideas
   

7. Commitment… continuing support in the face of obstacles
   

8. Leadership… refers both to the executive leadership of senior managers as well as to day-to-day project leadership of the change process (pp. 2-3)
   

Ely admits that as yet no clear hierarchy has emerged or a description of the relative strength and importance of each condition.

Links

http://tlc.nlm.nih.gov/resources/publications/sourcebook/adoptiondiffusion.html
Carr, V.H. Technology Adoption and Diffusion

http://ifets.ieee.org/periodical/vol_4_99/kim_dooley.html
Dooley, K.E. (1999). Towards a Holistic Model for the Diffusion of Educational Technologies: An Integrative Review of Educational Innovation Studies. Educational Technology & Society, 2(4).

http://www.iste.org/jrte/33/1/abstracts/durrington.html
Durrington, V.A., Repman, J., & Valente, T.W. (2000). Using Social Network Analysis to Examine the Time of Adoption of Computer-Related Services among University Faculty. Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 33(1).

http://www.isdc.org/CBAM.html
The "Stages of Concern" from The Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM). ISDC.

http://www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed444597.html
A Survey of Educational Change Models. ERIC Digest.

References

Belasco, ? (1991). Teaching the Elephant to Dance. Random House.

Ely, D.P. (1997). Emerging paradigms in diffusion and implementation (Chapter 9). In C.R. Dills & A.J. Romiszowski (Eds.), Instructional Development Paradigms (pp. 155-178). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications.

Fullan, M.G. (1993). The complexity of the change process (Chapter 3). Change Forces: Probing the Depth of Educational Reform (pp.19-41). Farmer Press.

Gardner, ? (1981). Obstacles to renewal (Chapter 5). Defining Diffusion and Innovation (pp.43-53). WW Norton.

Holloway, R.E. (1993). Systems inquiry and its application (Chapter 37). In D.H. Jonassen's (Ed.), The Handbook of Research for Educational Communications and Technology (pp. 1107-1133) [online]. AECT. Available (2/10/02) at: http://www.aect.org/Intranet/Publications/edtech/index.html

Kanter, R.M. (1983). The Changemakers. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Miles, M.B., & Eckholm, M. (1985). What is school improvement? In W. van Velzen, M.B. Miles, M. Eckholm, N. Hameyer, & D. Robins (Eds.), Making School Improvement Work (pp. 33-67). Leuven, Belgium: ACCO.

Rogers, E. (1962). Diffusion of Innovations. New York, NY: Macmillan.