Common Barriers to Technology Use
Some of the more common barriers to technology use at my site would be the inadequate upkeep of the equipment, the inconsistent access to the equipment, and the frustration over trying to learn to use it, getting excited about trying it for themselves, and then not being able to use it because it is not functioning properly. Dr. Newberry mentioned 3 barriers that surface more often than not lack of equipment, time and training. Of these three, the barrier that impacts me the most would be lack of time to implement and use to the best advantage for everyone concerned. I have received a lot of training in the use of, but actually having the time to use it to the fullest advantage is a hard thing to do. If not for the numerous meetings, trainings, and PTC's, there possibly would be enough time for implementing the use properly. Another problem is having the time to allow the students to effectively use the equipment. My district is a standards based district, which pretty much means we have to stick to our time line as close as possible. If this is done as it should be, there is no time to allow the students to use the computers within the classroom. An additional problem is finding the programs that allow the students to practice the concepts that are taught and tested on at all levels. Then there is the additional problem of keeping the students on task while they use the computers. With only two computers in the classroom for student use, it becomes difficult to continue teaching while allowing students to use them.
Solutions to the problems would be to have additional staff on hand to address the upkeep issues. We have one tech person on site and one that serves from the district office. The turn around on a maintenance request is approximately 2 weeks to a month. I was experiencing printer problems and computer freezing, I put in a request, and it took so long that I had to start carrying my laptop from home daily. Another solution would be to have the workshops on site and make it mandatory that sign-ups are done in each area of implementation (beginning, intermediate, and advanced) for whatever programs that are being used at the site. The solution to the time barrier would be to allow one of the weeks of staff development to implementing the technology within the classroom providing a beforehand submission of what you will be doing to the administrative person on campus that is in charge of the technology use. A means of verifying that this is being done would be to use the same strategy that is being used in this class, submitting some visual proof of what you did.
Activities for week 2/12/07
Tuesday 2/13: Tried to work out the problem with downloading my project focus 1.
Wednesday 2/14: Downloaded podcast.
Thursday 2/15: Worked on focus 2 project.
Saturday 2/17: Responded to podcast and student blogs.
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I am a woman dedicated to making a difference in the lives of today's youth that are willing to go the extra mile in order to become significant contributors to the society of tomorrow.
About Me
- Anita K.
- Rialto, California, United States
- I am a woman dedicated to making a difference in the lives of today's youth that are willing to go the extra mile in order to become significant contributors to the society of tomorrow.
4 comments:
You've managed to cover it all! No time, no equipment, no access. At least you have had the training, but with only two computers, access is a problem. We have a computer lab, but the person who runs it was promoted 4 months ago and they haven't hired a replacement, so we can't use it.
It sounds like several of us are having the same problems. Not enough computers and not enough time. Its really sad when as educators we all know that technology is the way of the future yet we are not focusing on it in the classroom. A lot of my students ask questions when we are working on math or reading like, "How is this going to help me in the future?" and a lot of times I think to myself that their never going to use some of the stuff they learn. But with technology they can definately use it in the future, unfortuantely we focus very little on it.
Tech support can be a sticky one in my opinion. Everyone needs it, no one wants to pay to have more, districts tend to prioritize their own tech support before that needed in the classroom and there's never enough of it! :)
Our district prides itself on having great tech support and the only reason I can see is because they've implemented desktop access software. Whoopee, big deal. When a technician actually needs to come and see your computer, I've never heard of anyone coming within a week.
Our site pays our other tech teacher for his prep period (a 7th) so that he is our daily on call technician and it works great!
Lary Cuban did a big study of technology use in schools. One of his recommendations that came from this was to make sure the computers worked and if a computer didn't work, get it out of the classroom as fast as possible and replace it with one that did. He found that reliability was very related to computer use. If I were running a school infrastructure I would have all data stored on a central server. The actual computers in classrooms would be used to run programs but not store data. I would also have a standard software package on all computers, and teachers could install software anytime they wanted. If a computer breaks, the computer could be replaced immediately with no loss of data. I would have a set of replacements ready to roll into a classroom at the first breakdown. In this way, no teacher would ever have to wait for a computer to be fixed. A replacement could be made in minutes.
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