Impressions of Educational ICT

Last night I watched the first two episodes of The Killing, a 20-part Danish  thriller. I have never been to Denmark, and as far as I can remember I’ve never seen it depicted on film or video. But my impression of Denmark is now as follows:

• It’s night time most of the time. There appear to be brief interludes of daylight in which people can go out and do their shopping or go to work in relative safety.
• At night, it is either always raining, or has always just been raining.

Obviously, I know that Denmark isn’t really like that (I feel sorry for those Danes if it is), and I have the intelligence and wit to not be influenced by such impressions in any practical way. (For example, I wouldn’t turn down an invitation to speak or visit schools in Denmark on the grounds that it is always dark and raining!)

Nevertheless, impressions run deep, and first impressions run deepest of all, so this made me think: when people visit your school, or place of work, what is the first impression, and therefore probably the lasting impression, they will have of your educational technology provision? Friendly, helpful, accommodating? Or full of barriers born of a “no can do” culture?

Just asking.

See also:

31 Days to Become a Better Ed Tech Leader -- Day 4: Get Out and About

Comments

[Steve Warburton]

Terry's nudge for us to think about first impressions is important. But I'd hope he'd agree that even more important is the abiding impression for the user once they come to try and use hardware & software in an integrated way to accomplish all the work tasks they face everyday. Does Single-Sign-On really work, is your visualiser integrated with your whiteboard software, how quickly does your profile load... Is your system designed to take-away hassles...???

(re-reading Terry's post it could be that he's actually talking about the PEOPLE involved in your ed.tech provision... in which case I'd applaud several I've worked with recently at The Hereford Academy and Thomas Deacon Academy, for whom 'can-do' is a way of life...)

[Terry Freedman, Educational ICT Consultant]

Thx, Steve. I suppose my misgiving about your point regarding abiding impressions is that, if the first impression is bad, you may not get the chance to make a longer-term one. As the old saying goes, you dn't get a second chance to make a first impression.

I wasn't actually thinking about the people involved, but now that you come to mention it, that certainly comes into it. I love working with the sort of people you describe. A challenge for leaders is to convert everyone into those kind of people!