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Waterbury Adult Education: Reflections on Leadership*
This reflection responds to the following questions:
Roger D. Pelletier, Director
, Waterbury Adult Education
Differences between
Year 1 and Year 2:
My role as a leader of technology implementation
in Year 2 was different from that in Year 1 in the fact that I had
to personally make adjustments to keep up with the quickening pace
of my coordinator and instructional staff where educational technology
was concerned. I held more meetings with key staff to gauge our
progress, closely monitored both the lab schedule and in-service
training plan.
New Challenges
and Actions during Year 2:
Year 2 posed more of a challenge due to the sheer
number of different projects running simultaneously. However, certain
aspects of the project ran smoother due to the experiences/lessons
learned from year 1. For instance, the boondoggle of our antiquated
purchasing system led to some problems in year 1. Those types of
problems were avoided almost entirely in year 2 as the staff adapted.
In year 1 the SkillsTutor application was being used primarily by
the ABE pilot project, but instructors from several other program
areas did attend workshops and were introduced to this versatile
application and some even chose to pilot it in their program. In
year 2 we saw an increase in the interest and usage of the program
on the AHSCDP side which I attribute almost entirely to the encouragement
and tenacity of the coordinator. I felt as if the two biggest challenges
were to keep the momentum going and to encourage the reluctant instructors
to change the way they have been teaching for decades. I know we
have taken great steps in that direction.
Our ELLIS project, although used by various ESL instructors as a
pilot in year 1, was fully implemented by all ESL levels in two
separate computer labs and even as a stand-alone system within certain
classrooms in year 2. I was kept informed of the technical problems
we experienced with ELLIS in the early stages and ensured that the
network administrator and grant coordinator kept on top of things.
They adapted and overcame each new obstacle gracefully. This led
to less frustration by the instructional staff, thereby maintaining
our momentum.
Once again, I noticed an overall increase in the number of teachers
requesting time in the labs and time with the digital projectors,
so I reassigned the task of scheduling to the coordinator. This
arrangement proved beneficial. Not only did it ensure a balance
among the staff, it provided the coordinator with a means to develop
and control a sound implementation strategy.
Having the students use wireless laptops here
was a challenge that we had never faced before. The risk of losing
them to theft was a concern. Along with the network administrator,
coordinator, and instructional staff, we’ve devised a method
to ensure their security as much as humanly possible with constant
monitoring and redundant security procedures.
*from Technology
Implementation — End-of-Year Report as of June 30, 2003, compiled
by Roger D. Pelletier, Director
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