"Now You Change It"

Yes, get used to it. I had a conversation with a staff member the other day about the fact that the district is considering giving up on the costly Blackboard that our staff has finally embraced (after 5 years) and switching to the *free open-source Moodle. He was concerned that all the work put into BB thus far would be wasted. That is not the case at all. Think of it like a personal fitness routine. Just because you change programs or trainers does not mean the work you have done in the past has been wasted. On the contrary, it has gotten you to your level of fitness today.

It has not taken 5 years for the staff to learn BB. It has taken that long for them to buy into the concept of an on-line content management system. Now that they realize the benefits, I think they are ready to keep on moving forward.

The switch is still in the consideration stage (don't panic) but aside from the resistance of staff to have to "learn something new", I see a lot of value in the open-source applications. For one, they are constantly changing for the better.

Just this past year we introduced wiki's into the classroom and in a few short months, our kids are utilizing dozens of them. A great feature of Moodle is the integrated blog and wiki feature. Each course as well as each user automatically has access to their own blog. Everything in one place!

Below is an amazing new application that I happened upon today. More great tools to use every day. I will get an adventurous teacher to give this a go and report back. In the meantime, have a look for yourself and let me know what you think.