New Technologies

While it may be safe to assume that people have positive attitudes toward experimenting with new technologies in the workplace, it may be equally safe to assume that you will encounter people in the workplace who have low self-efficacy in experimenting with new technologies. Briefly describe a situation in which you have encouraged people to use a new technology and have been met with resistance or disappointing results. What attitudes did these people exhibit? What behaviors did they demonstrate? Using Keller’s ARCS model, describe how you could change the motivation of these people, or learners, to encourage success.  

There is an expectation that all the teachers have and maintain a website presence where I work.  While this sounds like a good idea for communication, it lacked understanding of the time commitment and knowledge necessary.  Administrations typically hire a service to fulfill their needs when it comes to a website, therefore do not create individual presences as was requested of the teachers.  Teachers found it difficult to take care of this task without knowing how or where to start.  Once some training was offered, creation began but lacked direction or planning.  To the disillusionment of the teachers the existence of individual websites did not alleviate, assist, or change any existing tedious work.  In fact, it just added to teacher workload as more maintenance.  As individuals they didn’t advertise or encourage traffic.  As a district, acknowledgment as well as eliminating duplication of work was not pursued.  Teachers did not realize what might be necessary to grow appreciation of viewers or add value in communication.  Many abandoned the idea in favor of more successful impacting projects.  To this day, 5 years later, there is still a demand for full implementation with residual resistance from this idea’s original inception request, although weak.

The "Motivational ARCS Design Process" Presented by Dr. John Keller is an acronym for Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction (2011).  Motivation beyond demand is necessary for sustainability.  Individuals seek purpose and value in experiences.  Finding reason and logic to endure the task built motivation and acceptance.  Motivation occurs in many ways.  Some may wish to be part of the majority, others may want to lead by example, and there are those that reach an understanding evoking willingness.  With input and communication between the taskmasters and the task doers, needs were realized and addressed.  Taking everyone’s thoughts, fears, hopes, and concerns into consideration expressed value in and of every individual as well as providing clarifying a value in purpose associated with the task.  Creating an environment for the experience to build and connect knowledge encouraged and motivated each to learn and continue as part of a greater community.  Upon acceptance of this missing component, a route to success was planned and implemented.  This has lead to a better work environment.  Teachers are responsive to audience needs as a means to work smarter, not harder.  The traffic is increasing as what is sought is shared.  The development of individual teacher websites brought attention to classroom happenings, relevant communication to interested community members, confidence in the benefits gained, and satisfaction in doing a job well and receiving appreciation and acceptance of continuous learning and development.

Keller, J. (2011) Motivation Design. Retrieved February 06, 2011, from

http://www.arcsmodel.com/home.htm