Kiddom Helps Administrators Manage Change

Kiddom is an easy-to-use learning management system alternative that provides educators with an effective alternative to Google Classroom. Its pages are visual and easy-to-understand, enabling teachers to quickly create lesson plans, find targeted resources, and determine how students are doing. Click here for my full review.

What Kiddom does that few other education webtools do is provide free educator and administrator guides on topics such as Standards-based Grading, Blended Learning, and lesson planning (click for my reviews of these). Their newest is the twenty-eight-page ISTE-aligned Change Management eBook. It addresses how to create a sense of urgency, build a coalition, form and communicate your strategic vision, enable action by removing barriers and instituting change, generate short-term wins, and more.

Eric Sheniger, a Senior Fellow at the International Center for Leadership in Education, argues that when considering changes, especially in the realm of education technology, administrators should begin by naming the reasons behind our decision before doing anything else. Start by considering: What is your vision for how technology will be utilized to improve students’ learning outcomes?

In the oft-daunting world of tech-infused education, this guide provides effective strategies to lead the way from wherever you are, be it paper-and-pencil or tech comfort, to where you need to be.

What I like

There’s a lot I like about this pithy education guide but a few ideas stood out as I read the PDF:

• The development of this manual is based on feedback from administrators who deployed Kiddom at their schools. I couldn’t help nodding as I read the two top challenges (teacher buy-in and follow-through).
• The guide shares specific steps administrators and teachers took unpacking Kiddom in classrooms and solving the inevitable problems that arose. This gave me a sense of how change can effectively be implemented and what problems were likely to occur.
• It’s aligned with ISTE standards, one of the most respected and accepted measures of technology use in education.

Education applications

Here are seven school applications that might apply to your specific needs:

• Improve outdated systems including your learning management system.
• Provide change in pedagogic frameworks.
• Collect and assess data easily and quickly.
• Increase accessibility.
• Provide more time to plan lessons.
• Provide more time to collaborate, design curricula, and find teaching resources.
• Build student-centered classrooms.

Toward the back of this guide is an opportunity to participate in Kiddom’s pilot program. If you choose this route, you get:

• a custom welcome kit for your school or program
• 12-month licenses for teachers, students, and administrators
• a dedicated Kiddom School Success Manager
• contextualized training and success resources
• two hours of professional development live via webinar
• live customer support
• access to Kiddom Academy for administrators
• early access to new products and influence over future ones
• membership in Kiddom’s Educator Brain Trust

Do you want more information before you choose the pilot option? Check out this link with reflections from a Kiddom pilot administrator.

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Effecting change can be difficult but with Kiddom’s Change Management for School and District Administrators, you have a proven roadmap based in research and pedagogy, one that engenders trust in the steps you take and the outcome you can expect. For more on how Kiddom makes teaching easier, watch this video:

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.