LIT2T Leadership Guide

59 TO: TABLE OF CONTENTS role information practices play in immigrant’s lives. This strongly suggests we must support information seeking better practices among our newcomer clients to support their personal immigration projects. We know there is program fatigue out there from cutbacks, and increased professional development demands from PBLA. There are no quick answer to any of these problems. You understand better than I do the need for paid release time, enhanced compensation for technology leadership, and more flexible program guidelines from the funder. I’ve included a British Council book chapter by Kiely as a reading on program evaluation. If you haven’t already, I suggest you give careful thought to the central role evaluation can play in creating communication by and among all the stakeholders in your local learning technology innovation. Addressing and Leading Change No program converts to LINC blended learning or deploys TELL-based language instruction overnight. Change is evolutionary. Poppler thought that change was a result of adjusting in response to feedback. Popper asserted all change was social; a person changed only as influenced by others. He also argued that a person could influence organizational change. At some point, everyone asks themselves if they are personally capable of making the change. Individual readiness to innovate and change is most influenced by observing others and the social context. (Farmer, 2012, p. 15) As individuals make choices, the potential for change is affected by the attributes of the behaviour itself—what am I being asked to do, be or support? Personal factors including attitude and previous experience; And environmental influences. As we are challenged to change, we are constantly monitoring for consequences, and assessing the benefits and drawbacks. Key influences typically are: “…perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude toward using technology, and subjective norm. The latter factor indicates the degree to which peers and other people around the individual encourage technology acceptance. In that respect, Davis’s work recognizes that other people’s beliefs impacts one’s own attitude and willingness to accept new technologies, even if personally uncomfortable with change in general” (FARMER, P. 23-24) A theory of reasoned action asserts that individual’s attitudes about behaviour consequences especially the value of the outcome, “… and the influence of others (both in terms of their belief about the outcome and the motivation to comply to other’s expectations)” can work for or against the use of technology. (P. 24) Havelock’s 1973 theory of change stipulated four roles of the change agent: 1. as a catalyst or trouble maker whose efforts stir up change 2. as a solution giver 3. as a resource linker, be it financial, material, human, or knowledge-based 4. as a process helper who can recognize and define needs, diagnose problems, set objectives, acquire needed resources, help implement solutions, and evaluate solution success. (P. 19) “Within these roles, the change agent gathers relevant information by inquiring and listening to clientele, observing and measuring systems outputs, and then reflecting on that data in order to diagnose the existing situation and determining how best to facilitate change. As clientele progress in the change process, change agents should apply stage-specific activities” (HAVELOCK & ZLOTOLOW, 1995 (P.19)