Education Blog: Institutional Technological Change Manager

The 9th WSEAS International Conference on
E-ACTIVITIES

Education Blog: Institutional
Technological Change Manager

Universidad de Los Andes, Mérida, Venezuela.
December, 14-16, 2010

AUTHORS: JOAN F. CHIPIA LOBO; FRANCKLIN RIVAS; GLORIA MOUSALLI-KAYAT

Job Structure

1 INTRODUCTION

2 EDUCATIONAL BLOG

3 CHANGE RESISTANCE

4 TRANSFORMING THE ORGANIZATION

5 ENTERPRISE, INSTITUTION OR
ORGANIZATION CHANGE MANAGEMENT

6 HOW TO ENABLE LONG-TERM SUCCESS?

7 MANAGEMENT BALANCE CHANGE

8 CONCLUSIONS

1 Introduction

Human life is constant change, which is evident every second, this concept
is very important for handling a positive organizational transformation.

To make this possible, it is important to achieve goals by negotiating in
order to warranty success for all parts involved; it has to be well thought
out and planned, considering human talent and institutional impact

This technological management change was require in the Unidad
Educativa Bolivariana "Genarina Dugarte Contreras", because of the
institution location (Pueblo Nuevo del Sur, State of Mérida, Venezuela),
which is a rural farming community with very hard access because of roads
condition, and also for communication problems, in addition most of the
affiliated faculty and staff do not live in town, having to take an average of
3 hours to commute, thus is vital to integrate a media through which it
becomes possible to communicate more easily.


Wiki Vs Blog
Direct observation was use to
evaluate the two tools by a
guide practice

It was conclude to use the blog
because of faculty and staff
technological knowledge limitation.


2. EDUCATIVE BLOG

There is plenty of sites free of cost that allows
to host Blogs like: WordPress; Livejournal;
Xanga; Edublogs y Blogger.T

A meeting was held for
each blog hosting service,
Blogger was chosen
because of the simplicity


Blog Created
http://uebolgenarinadugartecontreras.blogspot.com


Unidad Educativa Bolivariana “Genarina Dugarte
Contreras” Staff

Clean Personnel

Administration Staff

Teachers' Personnel

Directive Personnel

ALL WITH THE SAME OPPORTUNITIES TO PUBLISH
information, communications of the Institution or to share materials in
video, photographies, audio, written formats.


3 CHANGE RESISTANCE

The resistance to the change frequently produces
initiatives failure

To not fail the cause was identified
It was the technological literacy

To generate confidence it was necessary to have:
A lot of Patience

It was done by:
Multiple workshops to handle the Blog


A vital aspect was to exceed the
resistance to the transformation, was
to involved everebody and show them
all the information, without any type
of secret, in order to make all the
actors take part in an active way and
thereby to obtain a genuine change.

Which brought tangible benefits, even the people who proved to
be resistant, they ended up by taking part.
Therefore, we can use a venezuelan popular saying Whom
perseveres wins


4 STAGES TO TRANSFORM THE ORGANIZATION

Kotter and Cohen []

1 To increase the urgency
Imperious need to have a space in the Web to not be isolated of the
world of the communication and information.

2 Creating a leadership team
A group of teachers was generate: formed by a computer science
teacher, A computation technician and two teachers students of
MEIDI, which led the change in a joint way.

3 To obtain the suitable vision
The conductive team generated an action plan to develop the vision of
constructing and administering an Educational Blog that will serve to
communicate institutional information, share reflections and
educational materials. Strategies such as Brain Strom and Six Hats to
Think were use as fundamental props for the effort of technological
change.

4 Communicate to produce the approval:
A narrow communication was established by doing weekly
meetings between the members of the Institution, in order to start
making them accept the idea of change.

5 To provide authority or responsibility for action:
Basic training was given to the members of the Institution to make
entries and to write comments in the Blog, with it important tools
were provided, helping them to take part on the project in an active
way, there were left as homework to fulfil a post where they had to
explain the strengths and weaknesses of the blog.

6 To achieve small victories in the short term:
It was achieved a significant progress, due to the fact that the
personnel proved to be an interested party, which was
demonstrated in the need to use the Blog as a powerful way of
communication.



7 Not to abandon
This was obtained because of a gradual changes, for example: the third
place was obtained in EduBlogs's contest in the Free Congress in
Education 2010. Also for the constant publication on the Blog.

8 Make the changes prevail:
Respectful and motivating messages are published as incentive to
make possible that the change prevails in time, this can be possible by:

•Constant meetings (inside and out of the Institution).

•Creating a Group in Facebook that serves to communicate the
evolution of the Institutional Blog or another information that wants to
be spread.
•In the near future the use of the Blog will be extensive for the
students.

5 CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN A COMPANY,
INSTITUTION OR ORGANIZATION.

The basic goal of this concept, is to do fundamental changes to
develop skills that allow to operate efficiently at present, which
becomes increasingly challenging.

Some examples of management of institutional change, obtaining
different results, some had positive fruits and other negatives.


Examples
Positive result: SONY which managed to be the company most known
for changing the image of bad quality that Japanese products had at the
beginning of the fifties decade.

Negative result: Eastern Airlines and other companies obtained an
intermediate point with a generalized tendency towards the low part of
the scale, this according to an analysis of last decade in a hundred
companies, the most important is to learn the following two general
lessons:
In the cases of major success the process of change is in the habit of
crossing numerous stages, which as a whole they need a long time.
To commit serious mistakes in any of the phases has a catastrophic
effect, which reduces the advance speed and offsets the improvements
that with effort had been achieved


5.1 Common errors when you want to manage change in a
company

There are many common errors, but these are the eight most
important according to Kotter and Cohen []

5.1.1 Error 1.Not establishing the true importance and meaning
of the urgent: To avoid this error was used as motivation: the
impact of the technologies of the information and communication in
the society and in the Education, by means of a workshop of four
hours.

5.2.2 Error 2. Not creating a sufficiently powerful direction
coalition: a multidisciplinary team was created consisting of a
computer technician, a teacher who teaches computer classes and
two teachers who are currently students of the Master of Computer
Education and Instructional Design program, which was done with
the objective being successful in the plan.


5.2.3 Error 3. Lack of vision: To prevent this error, the project of
transformation was elaborated by an image of future relatively easy to
report to the members belonging to the institutional family, exposing the
necessary elements to develop the offer

5.2.4 Error 4. Communication level lower than required: The
guideline was to dedicate enough time and effort to preparing
informative letters and explanatory workshops thus to gain the support
of all the participants in the institutional community.

5.2.5 Error 5. Not to remove obstacles for the new vision: It was
begun by involving the totality of the members of the institution as the
process was progressing, then it encouraged us to prove new methods,
for developing new ideas and providing leadership, with the only
restriction that the parameters had to adapt to the general vision.


5.2.6 Error 6. 6. Not develop a systematically plan for short-
term results: the progress of the graphic interface of the Blog
was shown in order to not loose the initial interest, also it was
submited in a contest which won third place.

5.2.7 Error 7. Thinking about Victory too soon: For it the
Educational Blog of the Educational Unit " Genarina Dugarte
Contreras " is in a constant process of construction and
administration, since three to five years is needed to achieve a deep
and real consolidation in all the participants of the Institutional
community (including students).

5.2.8 Error 8. Not recognize the changes in the culture of the
organization: this is being done, spreading in a constant way the
importance of the Blog for the Educational Unit, since it is an
indissoluble part of the Institution, advertising is in use in the
informative billboards and a social network by showing the
importance of this tool and it is done by showing as slogan: without
Educational Blog the Genarina it is incomplete.


6 ¿HOW TO ENABLE LONG-TERM SUCCESS?

To do a lasting success is opportune to have values and essential
intentions that remain constant, while the strategies and practices must
adapt to a changeable world

The essential values are basic and lasting postulates of an
organization, which have an intrinsic value and importance for his
members, normally only some are needed, few ones between three
and five, for example Walt Disney has the following ones:
No cynicism.
To promote and to spread " the American values ".
Creativity, dreams and imagination.
Obsessive attention to the coherence and detail.
Conservation and control of the magic Disney


The Educational Blog of the Institution has as essential
values:
Constant work
Creativity and initiative
Commitment with the Education.

The essential intention is the reason of being of the organization,
in other words the soul of the company, for example Walt Disney
has as intention make the people happy. While, the intention of
the Educational Institutional Blog is: to communicate
information and to share educational materials updated by a
common good.


To conclude, a key aspect of the success takes root in that the
involved ones trust the communicated messages, this is achieved
using valid, precise, exact and reliable means, for example they
were call for informal meetings and there was requested that the
questions had to be in writing, they were answered considering all
of them, even those that didn`t have any logic (because as agent of
change it is necessary to be receptive and patient in any instant)
with this an increasing commitment of the personnel was achieved
by the technological change.


7 BALANCE IN CHANGE MANAGEMENT

When the Blog was used as manager of the technological restructuring, the
members of the Educational Institution began to think and do things in a
different way; therefore it is possible to affirm that this management was
conceive in a different way, since it manages differently the learning of the
use of a computer than the healing process of the body affections, it was
handled in the frame of making possible a connection and balance of all
the elements of the restructuring project.

It is fundamental the creation of an organizational
environment in which it could originate the
change, considering the emotional connections
that commonly have been eliminated of the place
of work but that are essential in order that the
transformation is successful


According to the POPULAR WISDOM, it begins by the personnel
accepting the vision, followed by a change of behaviors and
attitudes, which the commitment of transformation will bring as
product the organization and the spiral of success will stay in the
time; it is probable that this has happened in some Institution,
nevertheless the most habitual thing is that good effects do not
happen, therefore it is necessary to search and capture all the
involved ones, to make the interest and the winning attitude
feasible towards the project, in such a way that when the program
is announce obtains love for the project, saying it in other words,
to believe in the new vision


There was employees who were desmotivate and sceptics to the
technological innovation, that´s why the Blog as manager of
restructuring did to itself a process of persistent chat with the
different actors of the Institution, which was extremely difficult,
especially with the teachers who have worked more than fifteen
years and with the personnel of maintenance, the first ones because
they have deep-rooted many beliefs and fears, the second ones for
the existing fear towards the use of the technologies, this produces
a resistance to the change, which was attacked in a meticulous way


8 CONCLUSIONS

The Blog as manager of technological institutional change gave us
the comprehension of this process and the organizational learning ,
departing from the principle that the planned restructuring was not
complete.

The incorporation of the Blog in the Educational Institution
allowed and it will allow to manage the technological change
stimulating the creative capacity of the involved ones, in order that
they can develop and create inside a friendly environment different
from the common one, and with this to promote decisions,
autonomy and control.


It is fundamental, to consider that to manage a technological
change means to constantly balance a continuous system,
that can be modified across the time, the difficulty takes root
in the way of doing it, and the way to go consists in that
everybody share a conception on how they have to relate
between the different components in order that all the
members of the Institution trust that a real and functional
restructuring will be achieved


Finally, the Change Management in an Educational Institution, in
the frame of the Technologies of Information and Communication
has to be possible, because we are nowadays in the society of
Information and Knowledge suits to overcome barriers, learning to
learn and learning to unlearn, and this way not to have resistance to
the necessary transformations to be at par of the current dynamics,
making the project to grow , with suggestions, confidence,
commitment with it itself, with the learning and education,
therefore we have to do it with initiative, dedication, creativity and
constant work; in conclusion to do a joint effort with love brings as
consequence excellent results.


References

[1] Beer, M., Gestionar el Cambio y la Transición, Harvard
Business Essentials, Ediciones Deusto, Barcelona, 2003.
[2] Dixon, N., The Organizational Learning Cycle, McGraw-Hill,
1994.
[3] Gross, T., Pascale, R., Athos, A., Kotter, J., Collins, J., Porras,
J., Duck, J., Martin, R., Strebel, P., Augustine, N., Schaffer, R. y
Thomson, H., Gestión del cambio, Harvard Business Essentials,
Ediciones Deusto, Barcelona, 2000.
[4] Kotter, J. y Cohen, D., Las claves del cambio, Harvard
Business Essentials, Ediciones Deusto, España, 2003.
[5] Kleiner A. y Roth G., El cambio basado en el aprendizaje,
Oxford University Press México, México, 2001.


[6] Richard Tanner Pascale, "Managing on the Edge: How the
Smartest Companies Use Conflict to Stay Ahead" Touchstone
Books, 1991.
[7] Rojas O., Alonso J., Antúnez J., Orihuela J., Varela, J., Blogs. La
conversación en Internet que está revolucionando medios, empresas
y ciudadanos, Editorial ESIC, Madrid, 2005.
[8] Stuart, B., Sistemas de Gestión del Conocimiento, Thomson
Editores, Madrid, 2002.
[9] Waddell, D. y Sohal, A., Resistance: a constructive tool for
change management, Management Decision, Vol. 36, No. 8, 1998,
pp.543-548.
[10] Potts, R. y Lamarsh J., Cómo gestionar el cambio con éxito,
BLUME EMPRESA, Singapur, 2004.


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