Step Four: Overcoming Barriers
As state leaders begin to initiate and implement eLearning programs within states and districts, new and often unforeseen challenges arise. One subgroup focused their time on identifying these potential challenges and thinking through possible ways for state leaders to overcome such obstacles.
These potential barriers fall into an array of different areas including, but not limited to: funding, leadership, effectively making the case, quality and legal issues surrounding eLearning programs and models.
Barrier Identification Matrix:
The Building Blocks of a State E-Learning Action Plan
These conditions affecting eLearning programs vary from state to state, as do the state governing structures and entities with authority over education, generally, and eLearning issues specifically. Therefore, with an awareness of this, the group developed this interactive action planning tool to be used by state leaders across states to apply issues specific to their own situation and, through a four-step process, identify the potential options that exist within their respective states to overcome these challenges.
This interactive tool has been developed to assist state leaders as well as a variety of stakeholders identifying the challenges in implementing eLearning by leading the stakeholder to:
- Determine whether specific conditions are favorable or unfavorable for implementing eLearning;
- If the conditions are judged unfavorable, to precisely define why the conditions are unfavorable;
- Specifically articulate one or more solutions to the unfavorable existing practice; and
- Identify the authority able to enact the desired solution.
The user-entered text then serves as an action plan as it identifies specific problems, desirable solutions, and authorities that must be involved in implementing the solution. Examples of unfavorable conditions with accompanying possible solutions and authorities are included within the matrix.
 Barrier Identification Matrix [59 KB]
 MAKING THE CASE TIP #7:
Relate eLearning programs and initiatives to
data-driven decision making and the school improvement process.
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