Socail Changes

To be honest, my knowledge of diffusion of innovation was nonexistent. Now, I feel that I am somewhat knowledgeable about the subject; however, I will need to have more hands-on experience and research before I feel comfortable being a social change agent.

After playing the Diffusion Simulation Game (Indiana University Bloomington), I'm sad to say that I was a very ineffective social change agent. I wasted a lot of time in trying to get other people involved who had very little, if any, concerns about implementing a peer-tutoring program in my hypothetical school. I did find that the hardest part of acting as an agent of social change was getting the principal involved in the process. The principal of this game seemed more focused on a personal 20-year plan and wanted a career change. The personal interests of the principal turned out to be the biggest factor affecting the outcome of the game.

If I had the opportunity for a reboot of the game, I would select a different group of people to assist me with my For example, I would utilize the services of both the secretary and the school janitor to assist me in my goals. After completing the game, learned not to assume that just because people are not directly involved with the day-to-day educational teaching of students that they cannot influence other members of the school network. These people turned out to be quite valuable in assisting with my attempt of implementing a peer group.

There were not that many questions, which arose from my use of the game; however, I was able to make a lot of observations. I found out that the best person to influence the principal was the secretary. The secretary is the gatekeeper of the principal. If one can get in good with the school's secretary, and have a good relationship with him or her, it would be easier to gain access to the head administrator in the school.

The people in charge of the process were the ones who I found the most difficult to reach. I found it very difficult to break into the inner circle despite the good intentions of my program. Due to the difficulty of trying to penetrate the inner circle, I ended up wasting a lot of time and energy attempting to sway people to my point of view.

If I had to do the program again, I would start first with the people who I felt could assist and give influence to the people in charge. To this end,