I was in a great meeting this week where we were considering whether
or not to go ahead with a full scale implimentation of the Moodle LMS
for assessment purposes in our district. It was a great meeting not
because of the topic but the way it was being handled.
We were talking about the absolute costs of an open source LMS and of
staying with a custom-built assmessment solution. We were really
looking for a venn diagram moment when one of the curriculum and
instruction representatives said something really smart: “There is a
cost to not doing anything as well. It may not be a dollar cost, but
it will cost the teachers the ability to know more about their kids’
knowledge and it will cost the kids some learning opportunities.”
(Paraphrased by me.)
Too often we do not think about the cost of doing nothing or of doing
things too slowly. Does appathy in the face of huge choices cost our
kids the best learning years of their lives?
So, it got me thinking: What are the costs of doing nothing (or doing
very little) to change school?
Share an idea if this makes you think as much as it has made me.
The cost of not doing anything…
Author: Ben Wilkoff
Hi Ben. I discovered your blog through the edubloggers directory and I’m loving it. I thing of schools and change in terms of snowballs! A school that won’t change is like a snowball sitting still. It’s not growing and eventually it will melt because of outside circumstances. On the other hand, a school that is open to change is a snowball on the move. It will become more attractive to people who want to contribute to change – it will draw motivated teachers, willing parent helpers, community members, grant money etc. People want to be part of something that has vision and drive. Before you know it, you have a massive snowball with everyone on board. (you just want to hope the snowball is going in the right direction!) without change, schools are sitting in slush waiting to melt.