Many moons ago, as an elementary school librarian, I read and adopted Harry Wong’s classroom management strategies. I was working at a library that had a fixed schedule for library visits.  I, of course, wanted to create excitement for the library and the wonders it held, but I learned if I took the time at the beginning of the year to explain and implement processes and procedures, the class visits yielded so much more wonder and excitement to students over the year. Taking the time to adjust and to provide quick feedback when things started to go awry as students learned these procedures caused a slower start to what I knew was the great stuff. But when we got to the great stuff, the rules of the road established early allowed for greater freedom as year progressed.

I was reminded of all this at a recent training. I hadn’t taken the time to secure the procedures. I made the assumption all would have the Schoology and Adobe apps on their iPads. I did not think through some screenshots. I had to work through the miasma of forgotten passwords. It was painful and a little embarrassing. It took up time I could not spare.

I had to remember, though, that this was a failure in procedure, not technology. What felt like a disastrous waste of time could be seen, in a classroom, as the slow start to creating a procedure. Yes, it took a half hour for everyone to download the apps. In a classroom that means the next time the iPads would have the apps. Yes, passwords are forgotten, but if they are used daily they are not forgotten. Yes, not all the could complete the assignment. But in a classroom, next time they could.

Passwords and registrations, downloads and installs may be the bane of the ed tech world. But they are the necessary procedures that allow for the magic to happen.