The 1909 postcard above is from my paternal grandmother’s collection, and in case you can’t read the caption, it reads “Toot ‘N’ Be Darned.” It shows a grumbly old-world buggy driver blocking the road so that a newfangled car can’t pass.
I’ve compiled a few excuses reasons educators give for avoiding the use of technology in their classrooms. I can’t say I blame them. Many of these reasons are, unfortunately, valid! But avoidance might create a block to progress, just as this old buggy driver wants to block the path of the car that would overtake him if allowed.
And maybe, just to play devil’s advocate for a moment, maybe the road needs to be blocked sometimes, or the oncoming traffic needs to be slowed down and carefully examined before it creates new problems that were not expected. Is too much too soon a problem for instructional technology as it often was for transportation?
Click here my for list of reasons, and if you don’t mind, I’d really appreciate your input, so I’ve created a survey (link is below). It’s a two-question survey. I hope you’ll participate!
My SurveyMonkey account is the basic free level (perfectly suited for the educator’s salary level - tee hee!), so it’s limited to 100 respondents. I will compile results and if I get that many, I’ll make another survey for the next 100. I’ll share results in an upcoming post.
(P.S. Be sure to use the “Back” button on your browser to return to my site. I made the mistake of “X’ing” out of the browser completely and had to reconnect. Do it all the time. Sigh. Technology - it can confound all of us!)
This blog expresses the personal opinions of the author and is not affiliated
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Posted on July 27th, 2008 by Sharon Elin
Filed under: Uncategorized
Sharon-
Very insightful and a wonderful way to get your visitors to focus. Do you think a follow-up ight be aligning counter arguments or evidence for the deadly no’s?
Thank you,
-Skip
Hi, Skip,
Thank you for your comment. Interesting that you would suggest follow-up with counter-arguments! My aunt, who is my mentor/guru as a retired education professor, looked over my new blog and asked, “Are you singing to the choir?” and I have to admit, that’s a concern!
In a blog (which usually is only visited by other bloggers!), the non-techies are likely to be under-represented as well as unreached.
I want to represent and speak to teachers who don’t use technology or who are resistant as well as those who are hungry for technology. Of course I’d like to get all teachers on board, but I need to temper my own bias with some reality therapy. Teachers have extremely full plates and are facing huge time constraints. I don’t think it’s wise to automatically push my technology agenda on every teacher in every situation.
Instead, I hope this blog inspires dialogue and discussion that will bring some of these concerns to the table, without pressuring the non-techies. I want to be careful not to adopt an elitist, arrogant, or condescending bias.
Thanks for your input!
I am enjoying your blog and will be adding yours to my feeder although it doesn’t need any more!! Using the survey was a great idea.
I too try “not to push my technology agenda on every teacher.” Last year was my learning year for my new tech position and I didn’t push much at all. This year I will begin to give gentle pushes to those teachers I think are ready for a little push and are willing to work with me. Hopefully things will go well and we’ll have a ripple effect and get others started on using tech a little more as well.
You may be singing to the choir but new members are joining all the time and we can all continue to learn from each other.
Ah, you have to love political cartoons (although I guess that one’s more social than political)– great metaphor!
I know I work with many colleagues who just don’t want to be bothered; as you said, our plates are full already, and there’s always the feeling that your principal/superintendent is imposing something on you, rather than offering you another voluntary option.
On the other hand, I want to implement technology whenever it could improve instruction, but it’s always a question of resources, and the most precious resource we have to ration– far more expensive than any hardware– is time. I’m excited by all the things I’ve learned about in the “Web 2.0 for Teachers” class I am taking this summer along with the resources I’ve seen shared in my Plurk network and elsewhere, but the question gets down to: will I have time to integrate these tools into my teaching? Do I really want to re-invent the wheel? I’ve decided that I will maintain the status quo to an extent, but work technology in when it seems it could work well with a particular lesson. As much as I’d like to re-invent all my plans to use tech tools to their maximum potential, I’d have to take a year off first to do that!
Came for the post on your cool banner. Stayed for the discussion on “old world” obstruction. I took your survey, and found an unsettling number of complaints that sounded familiar. Some of them come from my own mouth. I look at the 6 weeks of intense self-training that I’ve put myself through this summer to get my tech chops up to speed and create material for class, and I think, “how am I ever going to keep this up once I’m teaching 5 days a week?”
Also, the problem with the technology not working on demand is hard to refute. It’s a problem to give control of the flow of a lesson to a piece of technology, only to have it fail. Much safer to retain control with materials that I completely understand and can fix myself.
That said, I still push forward however I can. The material is important, and the pedagogy must be developed and explored.
Hi Sharon, it seems as if the problem is the same all over the world. Here in South Africa we are experiencing the same barriers to teachers using ICT in schools. I have left a message on your “about me” page, but am not sure if it gets through to you. Just wanted to let you know that I have linked your 12 reasons to a posting I did on my blog this morning. Hope we can stay in touch and compare notes.