Why Are So Many Teachers Afraid of Technology?

I have been working with teachers for decades and am always amazed at how reluctant we are as a profession to embrace the next technology. We seem to be one technological generation behind the rest of the world. When we were still hand-cranking our beloved spirit-master machines (AKA Ditto machines – you know you loved the smell!) and mimeograph machines, the rest of the world was using photocopiers. And, how long did it take for your school to finally get LCD projectors and interactive whiteboards – Smart, Promethean or otherwise? And if you finally got one, did you get adequate training? That’s another topic altogether.

While I no longer teach in the classroom and seldom teach graduate courses any longer, I visit do the classes presented in New Jersey and Pennsylvania offered by the Regional Training Center in partnership with The College of New Jersey and La Salle University respectively. When I encourage teachers to LIKE us on Facebook or connect with us on Twitter, I get a lot of interesting responses and reasons why they can’t or won’t. Many teachers are either afraid of being “found” by their students or are told NOT to be on social media by their districts. (I’m not sure districts can really do that.)

Facebook has lots of ways of protecting your account. You control who sees your stuff and can make it very restricted. I have my personal account set for only friends, of which I seem to have well over 300; however, these are all people I invited to be my friends or people I accepted as friends. My life is fuller because of it. How else would I have ever reconnected with so many college and high school friends and been able to share memories, photographs, grandchildren, etc.?

I do have Facebook friends that are former students, too. These are “kids” that were very special to me and I to them, I hope. It has been fun to catch up with them, watch them mature, marry and move up in their careers and have children of their own. Many of them tag me when they find a really good grammar error or joke, because they know I’ll “get it. 

There is so much more to technology in the education world that many teachers do take full advantage of, but another large group of educators continue to drag their feet. We recently tried adding a simple online component to a face-to-face graduate course. It involved posting a paragraph as a mid-course progress report on how the course was influencing their teaching already (or not). While most teachers had absolutely no problem with this, some were so perplexed that they called our office to rant and rave! I’ve even had teachers tell me that they don’t use computers. My answer to that would be (if I were bolder) that I don’t think you should be in the classroom any longer.

There are plenty of ways to get training and digital immigrants, while they will never be digital natives, can certainly learn to use today’s technology. Just get some training. Every school of education has courses just for that. Our program has them too:

“Universal Design for Learning: Reaching All Learners in the Digital Age,” designed by a Dr. Jon Mundorf, classroom teacher and a leader in the field, is available face-to-face and online. UDL provides practical, hands-on, digital-age solutions to reach and teach all learners. Universal Design for Learning is a framework to help educators meet the challenge of teaching diverse learners in the 21st century. It also provides a blueprint for creating flexible goals, methods, materials and assessments that enable students with diverse needs and learning styles to succeed in an inclusive, standards-based, digital classroom. NOTE: A laptop with WiFi capability is required to participate in this course.

Another course that has a lot of Web-based tools build into it is “Skills for Building the Collaborative Classroom.” Designed by a teacher and media specialist, Jennifer Caputo, this course is based on the 21stCentury Skills of collaboration, cooperation, creativity and critical thinking (the 4 C’s). The goal of this course is help teachers engage students who will live in a global community and work in a global marketplace. NOTE: A laptop or tablet able to search the Internet and download applications is required.

RTC also offers “Teaching 2.0: iPads in Education,” designed by Allyson Lang, a teacher who uses iPads every day in class. Participants will increase their knowledge of how iPads work, learn how data collection, storage and management can be made more effective: examine applications for classroom use, lesson planning, presentations and much more. NOTE: An iPad with WiFi capability is required. Applications will be downloaded during the course.

Don’t be afraid – do something about it!