Transitioning from paper calendars to Outlook calendar : A Change Project

Robin Mosteller 2 October 2012 Currently at Blevins Middle School approximately 40 classified staff receive a paper calendar once a month listin important dates for the entire school! "n addition to the eneral calendar rade level calendars are handed out! #lthou h$ a seemin ly minor issue$ the school is loo%in for &ays to become more efficient and increase recyclin efforts and reduce paper usa es! 'he school administration relies heavily on people readin and recordin the information in the calendar &ith no &ay to trac% if each individual actually read the calendar! 'his results in people missin meetin s and usin the excuse that they never received the notification and therefore cannot be held responsible for their absence! 'he school has used Outloo% for email for at least the past five years! "t is assumed that all staff &ill be proficient at this &hen startin the (ob! #lthou h the staff a e avera es in the late )0s$ teachers have had to under o extensive technolo y trainin from the district due to several technolo y bonds! Since Outloo% is used by administration to set appointments for formal meetin s$ " thou ht it &ould be lo ical that a school*&ide calendar &ould exist! #s a ne& teacher to this school " could not find a school*&ide Outloo% calendar! +hen " as%ed about it " &as told that only administration uses Outloo% , teachers enerally (ust &rite meetin s in a planner! "n the four meetin s " have attended in the first &ee%$ five people have been late or not sho&n due to losin trac% of time! +ith Outloo% reminders$ this &ould not be a valid excuse and &ould help those &ho did (ust lose trac% of time! +hen " as%ed administration for support of the calendar development " &as &arned that teachers &ould be hesitant to s&itch from the paper version! 'he district also does not support access on mobile devices for teachers in the district! The purpose of this project is to create and electronically distribute school-wide and grade-level calendars to all staff.

Planned Intervention
#n intervention to the issue described above is to create a school* and rade*level calendar &ith important meetin s and dates! 'hese calendars &ill allo& for an electronic record of &ho &ill attend the meetin and &ill allo& for users to set reminders for the meetin s! Since the pro rams already exist$ the implementation &ill be completed at a rather accelerated schedule! 'he calendars &ill be created and team leaders for the different rade levels &ill be iven privile es to edit the calendar by September )1st 2012! My oal- paper calendars &ill no lon er be iven out after October )1st 2012 and by .anuary 201) at least /00 of teachers &ill be addin their o&n information to the calendar application!

+hen thin%in about this intervention the five steps of Bur%man1s user*oriented instructional development 2Surry 3 4ly$ 20015 seem an appropriate frame&or%! 1! Identify the potential adopter , #ll school personnel &ho have a district email and therefore must use outloo% to access their email 2! Measure relevant potential adopter perceptions , #lthou h the school administration currently relies heavily on the outloo% calendar the teachers have not been encoura ed to use the pro ram! Some teachers lac% exposure to the pro ram &hile others have previously been over&helmed by irrelevant data! )! Design and develop a user-friendly product , "n order for the calendar to be user friendly teachers &ill be able to select from a multitude of school &ide calendars! 6or example a teacher &ho is not interested in sports &ill not have to put every football ame onto their person calendar! # sixth rade teacher &ill only need to have access to the sixth rade calendar and as a result &ill not et information about the 7th rade team meetin s! 4! Inform the potential adopter , #n email &ill be provided to all teachers about the replacement of the old paper calendar and the adoption of the outloo% calendar! Brief 1/ minute meetin s &ill be held to help explain &hat this calendar can help &ith and &hat teachers &ill be re8uired to do! /! Provide post adoption support , Since " currently &or% in the settin " &ill be available for teachers or staff &ho have 8uestions once the calendars are implemented!

Evaluation Plan
'he success of this pro(ect &ill be determined by attendance rates at important meetin s and also throu h the use of a survey re ardin individual implementation of the calendar! 'he survey &ill as% teachers about their reliance on Outloo% calendar! #dministration &ill be as%ed if they have found increased communication from teachers since they have access to the calendars and any chan es in meetin s!

Expected Findings
" expect that the adoption of this technolo y &ill follo& the S curve predicted by 4verett Ro ers1 2199/5 diffusion model! # fe& teachers &ill s&itch over immediately once the resource is available! " expect that the ma(ority of teachers &ill &ait until they no lon er have the paper option to rely on! 6inally the fe& teachers resistin the chan e &ill find it necessary to adopt the tool! 4ventually " thin% all teachers &ill find this a useful tool iven administration support and incentives for use! Once the school is exclusively usin the Outloo% calendar it &ill be hard to use any other option!

Environmental Impact Issues

Since the eneral soft&are pro ram is bein used$ there &ill be no additional cost to the implementation of this pro(ect! Cost &ill actually be reduced due to not needin to copy

and print a calendar every month or &ith every revision! "nformation updates and calendar revisions &ill be immediate$ &hich &ill allo& all teachers to be updated on time chan es or location in order to ma%e more effective use of everyone1s time!

Findings
#s expected some teachers immediately s&itched to the Outloo% calendar! 6rom a survey of all teachers it seems that teachers in special education &ere the first teachers to fully ta%e advanta e of the resource! "t seems that special education staff found that Outloo% calendars allo&ed a 8uic% accountability for eneral education teachers &ho &ould be attendin "4:s and also easy communication to other district personnel &ho mi ht need to attend the meetin $ such as O'1s and Speech patholo ist! 'eam leaders &ere iven access by September 1/th ho&ever some team leaders have not adopted the Outloo% calendar so they do not ta%e advanta e of inputtin meetin s! " feel that some of this is due to not &antin to add more tas%s to their list ho&ever " have been tryin to communicate ho& this method mi ht allo& for easier information sharin $ &hich has consistently been an issue &ith teachers &ho teach multiple rade levels! 6rom the survey iven to all teachers the most common feedbac% &as a lac% of %no&led e &ith ho& to use the calendar and not (ust accept meetin s! #s a result " have discussed &ith administration an option to add Outloo% information to the current blac%board resources on technolo y! #lthou h administration as initially on board &ith the chan e$ they have since decided that they &ill continue to provide the paper calendar for this school year! "t is my hope that as more current teachers use the calendar future teachers in upcomin school years &ill adopt the calendar &ithout thin%in !

Next Steps
#lthou h the pro(ect is on oin there are t&o steps that " feel &ould allo& for reater success of this pro(ect! 1! ;istrict uidelines for usin outloo% on mobile devices need to be revisited$ in order to allo& constant access to the calendars 2! #dministration needs to set the expectation that all staff &ill be trained in ho& to use Outloo% calendar and &ill set aside time in the all*staff meetin s to train those &ho are not proficient!

References
Surry$ ;!+!$ 3 4ly$ ;!:! 220015! #doption$ diffusion$ implementation$ and institutionali<ation of educational innovations! "n R! Reiser 3 .! =! ;empsey 24ds!5$ Trends and issues in instructional design and technology! >pper Saddle River$ ?.:rentice*@all! ;raft onlinehttp-AA&&&!southalabama!eduAcoeAbsetAsurryApapersAadoptionAchap!htm