RSA #2 (Teachers & Technology)

              Link to Article: Teachers & Technology

              With new media technologies changing the face of our world, the Internet, interactive television viewing, smart phones, and video games are developing at a pace never seen before.  As a result, many educational reformers suggest mastery of these technological tools in academic settings to help prepare students for post-secondary education, workforce employment, and global citizenship. According to Wallace (2012), “With the billions of dollars dedicated to instructional technologies in U.S. schools over the past thirty years, there has been a corresponding expectation that teachers should be using it in the classroom to prepare learners for the world they will be living and working in.” However, in reality, a lot of teachers are not integrating technology into their classrooms because of numerous barriers.

              There are many factors that deter technology use in the classroom: first-order barriers – equipment, resources, and support; second-order barriers – skills, and attitudes; and third-order barriers – school structure and culture. These barriers are unavoidable, unpredictable, and ever-adapting as new innovations are introduced to the classroom setting. First-order barriers are surface-level, behavioral, and dependent on concrete resources such as time, money, and materials. On the other hand, second-order barriers require greater personal investment because they challenge a teacher’s core beliefs and identity in the classroom. Finally, third-order barriers include how a teacher negotiates physical resources and pedagogical beliefs within the school environment. “When barriers layer one upon the other, teachers are faced with persevering through the stumbling blocks or yielding to the status quo” (Wallace, 2012). 

              I really like how this article separated the different barriers of implementing technology in the classroom into three different categories. It goes to show that some barriers cannot be helped by teachers, while others can totally change how a teacher teaches. Out of all three of the categories I think my school and my own teaching style would fall into the second-order barriers. Our school has the resources, all our students are 1:1 now, and the money to provide Internet and technological tools to our students. Our district strongly believes in innovation and using the technology we have available to help our students learn better. However, from all my years in schooling I was never taught how to use technology in a classroom because we didn’t have it available. Therefore, to shift how I learned and how I teach using a whole new approach, would take a lot of planning, time, and passion.

Resource: 

Wallace, K. (2012). Teachers & Technology: Identifying Uses, Barriers, and Strategies to Support Classroom Integration. Retrieved from https://goo.gl/KmqtwB