Pitching Ideas...

I have been working on three projects this past month; a skills sharing platform, an LMS pilot and improving the Touch Football School Sport Program. I learnt a few things this month about how to pitch ideas and how to enact change.

1. My wife is an experience Digital Project Manager and it would be easy for me to ask her to help develop my skills sharing platform idea. I am glad I refrained from relying on her to guide me through the whole process. I only asked for a starting point. A run down on the fundamentals of pitching ideas, creating briefs and what is the process of idea creation. Having partners involved can cloud your judgements and unfortunately you cant push in terms of time frames and urgency. However, asking questions from time to time reinforced the need for a solid pitch and short overview to engage the audience.

2. Finding a developer ain't easy. Until ideas are tangible many venture capitalists and developers don't want to get involved.

3. I held the first OneNote LMS Professional Development session at the College. Wow! I only had 10 people sign up initially but ended up with the whole staff cohort turning up. I wanted to reinforce the need for ICT Professional development at the College due to the lack of experience and skills base exhibited from the cohort. The first session was an Introductory session demonstrating the capabilities of an LMS. I was chuffed. The staff were engaged and asked plenty of questions in trying to make sense and relevancy to their own teaching practices. Strategic planning was crucial in terms of how to propose the idea, pitch the idea as a solution and demonstrate the capabilities as efficient and effective tools. Ultimately, I wanted to show the need for a classroom teachers to become more ICT literate.

4. I pitched the skills platform idea to the Deputy Principal, a Teacher and the Learning Director of the College. I used what I learnt from the OneNote session as a practice for introducing skills platform. I think I tried to much by also pitching the idea of reshuffling staff for next year and the need for an ICT teacher to exist within the College. I confused them in terms of what was my purpose for the pitch.

5. Bottom Up approach to change - I held one on one sessions with staff to drop hints, provide support and influence decisions. Combined with drop in practice sessions trialling the LMS was made more accessible. Teachers were given more time to practice processes and improve their knowledge. They could then reflect on practice and change accordingly at their own pace. Because I tested the capabilities with my students first I was able to demonstrate how effective the adoption of the LMS would be. Leadership without having to be a leader and leading by example. I am just concerned about if this change is good enough for macro school wide change.

6. During the second instalment of OnNote PD, I realised teachers are as bad as the students - Teachers don't follow instruction! They don't wish to follow them and they want to be spoon fed. Is this a structural and inherent issue?

7. The Deputy Principal was very receptive to the ShareOnesLearning platform - she was a big believer in students building portfolios. She showed me what Santa Sabina use as a LMS and how they link the students portfolio to the students LMS pages. I thought maybe as a way of launching the platform that I integrate SOL with a LMS system rather than run as a seperate platform. Package and tailor the platform so it can be rebranded for each school. Partner up with LMS like Canvas. Is it possible to add on or plug in to the big LMS systems. Overall, She was receptive to the idea of embedding into the curriculum. She also had some thoughts about how we may have the change our LMS. She did share some concerns over introducing ideas without following things through as staff at this school are not receptive to new things all the time. It also reinforced what I was doing was integral to the improvement in school culture. ie. Embed into practice - save time, money and resources. She wanted me to share with the Teaching and Learning Director and they will discuss with Executive. Hopefully, get the Principal to buy in.

8. By using the OneNote project to trial change strategies I can see if I can influence people to gain their trust. Then introduce SOL. Need to devise strategies so that the staff see it as a solution rather than an add on. This is crucial. After discussions with the Deputy she asked us to trail the OneNote LMS with the "SVC student leadership" team. With the leaders of school on board, the other kids started to implement the system into their day to day learning. The kids are loving OneNote and driving it forcing the teachers to up the challenge - even those who I didn't think would take me it up. Showing people the benefits takes time and it worth making some test cases for you idea in order to influence.

9. When setting up a program you need to set expectations at the start, hire good staff, create opportunities and motivation for staff and keeping communication lines up. After taking up the Head of Touch Football role, I have been very hands on at the start but will loosen the grip to give the coaches more autonomy. But guide the expectations of stakeholders - especially the students and parents.