Change Management

In one of the courses I teach - BPR the students learn about change management. In the course I am currently taking on distance education technology, we will be discussing the theory of change management in education.

From first glance it appears the two are not much different. You have personnel who are change agents, you have a growth and then a level off of acceptance of change and you have a "normal" curve of people accepting change. You have people who are first adapters and those that are laggards.

Really what that says to me is that, no matter what industry we are in, change must be correctly managed. Whether you are in a high manufacturing business or an educational field, or anywhere in-between.

September

The newness of the school year is always exciting to me. Whether it is getting ready for a brand new course or preparing for a course already taught. It doesn't matter that I start teaching and taking new courses throughout the year, September is the starting point. Maybe because August is break time for almost all my courses. Maybe it is because school has always started in September here in BC.

I guess it doesn't matter why. It is just a great feeling of renewal for the year. I always look forward to September.

WiFi Issues

Traveling and online instruction should, in theory, be easy. There is wifi available everywhere....right? Wrong. Last year I found out just how wrong. Hotels might have internet access where ever you go but we camp. So looking for RV sites with wifi was an adventure. But we consistently booked at them. What we considered good access and what we got was sometimes two completely different things. Some places were good and wifi was available at our site. Other places, the wifi was only available at a bench outside of the main office. Other places went the cheap route and had "residential" wifi instead of multiple. So, if you were the first person on in the morning, you were good to go. Otherwise, you were pretty much out of luck.

This year Rogers introduced tethering - I thought great, this will solve all my problems. Almost. You still need to be in cell phone range (camping at a provincial park in the middle of nowhere does not get you cell phone access).

All in all though, it has been much better this year. Whether I am linked to wifi access at a Starbucks or tethering on my cell phone, I can get access at least a couple of times a day.