Module 5: New Technologies

Over the last few years my own teenagers’ involvement in social networking brought out the curiosity in me. I have since become an avid user of Facebook as a means to keep in touch with family, friends and colleagues around the world. As I arrived at a new school this year, I suddenly began to receive invitations to become “friends” with staff members from my school. Our interactions became social rather than work-related.
When I learned about Ning, a social networking site that can be created and designed for one’s own interests and purposes, I realized that the implications for professional development were great. I designed a Ning site specifically to provide professional development opportunities for our teachers. The site was unveiled at a faculty meeting. While the concept was welcomed with enthusiasm and interest, I am disappointed by the lack of engagement in its use.
I have begun to ask myself what I can do to motivate my staff to use this tool. The staff falls upon a continuum of novice users of technology (they do email and that’s about it) to technology guru’s who are highly competent and confident. John M. Keller has put forward a model of motivational design that has given me insight into where I may have gone wrong. According to Keller, the essential conditions of motivation are attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction which are commonly known by the acronym ARCS (Driscoll, 2005). Though I feel that I sufficiently gained the staff’s attention and highlighted the relevance of Ning to professional development, I certainly neglected to allow the opportunity for the staff to build confidence. I introduced the tool and then expected that they go try it out independently. Only a handful of teachers actually went in and tried it out. Satisfaction was not generated because they haven’t had the opportunities to learn the platform enough to generate confidence or feel its relevance. I also think that the staff did not feel a sense of urgency to use the tool. If I were to add an incentive or a requirement that using Ning would fulfill, I imagine that there would be more motivation to use it. I believe that urgency could be another component easily added to Keller’s model for motivation though Keller might include urgency under relevance.
My plan to remedy this situation is to ramp up my attempts to motivate my teachers to use Ning. Building confidence will only happen if I give teachers opportunities to use the platform in a non-threatening way. If I use the gradual release of responsibility model, I will provide them with the scaffolded support that they need until they become ready to be independent users. As they become more confident and independent, they will realize that the use of Ning is worthwhile and helpful to their job, resulting in a strong sense of satisfaction, thus leading to increased motivation to use it.
Driscoll, M. P. (2005). Psychology of learning for instruction (3rd ed.). Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.