Rich Boettner, Chief Technology Officer at Hilliard City Schools (and EduJedi Gainer Level award winner) shares his district’s very successful system for implementation and rollout of new technologies. According to Boettner, “One of the things that we have been very fortunate to have is a great amount of support from our school board over the years for technology integration and technology use in the classroom. And over the years, we have implemented many, many different types of systems.

“And while all of those systems are exciting and really cool, I think the secret sauce is not in the systems themselves, but we believe that it's very, very important that the implementation, planning and how you roll out a system is the secret sauce. Encouraging change and helping people embrace change in a time when there's so much going on. I love this quote by will Rogers, ‘You never get a second chance to make a good first impression.’ What an idea and a concept. It’s so simple, but when you think about it, if something is rolled out in such a way, or you have enough opportunity to make a good first impression, it will pay big dividends whenever we roll something out. and if we don't do it right in the beginning, we will always fight an uphill battle.

“We found this a few years ago from someone in our curriculum team. I work in the technology department, but we work very closely with curriculum, and they had found this process for managing complex change. And, and I just fell in love with it immediately because there are so many things that if you don't include all the right components, all the right ingredients to the sauce, that sauce will not taste good. And so, uh, these are the different ingredients that need to be a part of a change process or an implementation process if you want to be successful.”

Whatever you do, don’t miss this video as Rich Boettner shares his very successful strategy for implementing, planning and rolling out technology, programs and new ideas in the district. It’s time-tested and it works – and it will work in your district as well!