Why aren’t schools making more progress when it comes to effective implementation and integration of digital technologies? Here’s what K-12 educators usually tell me when asked (list is in no particular order):
- Lack of adequate funding
- Unsupportive state / federal legislators
- Teacher / union resistance
- Lack of professional development
- Ineffective leadership
- Lack of time / space within curriculum
- Accountability demands of NCLB
- Parent / community resistance
I’m curious about your own situation. So I created a 3–minute survey! Simply click, drag, and drop the items to reorder them.
Survey closes Thursday, November 19. Hope you’ll participate (and pass this along to others)!
Great idea Scott. Thanks for posting the poll. I will be watching it today and sharing the results with my admin teams.
Do you never have people tell you that their schools/districts actually ARE making adequate progress?
you missed option 10. . . staff members who get wound up about little things like semantics which majorly slows the process down.
Another thing that really slows things down is the size and working with layers of approval or groups. A regional group of HS and District representatives met recently to discuss options for meeting learning needs across the entire area. Technology incorporation was the focus, and good discussion was held. Ultimately several questions were posted on Beating the Dead Horse to follow additional ideas and comments. We did this to share ideas locally but also get good input from others that may have ideas and or experiences that would help us. Ultimately, however, all representatives have to go back and have discussions, involve boards, get teachers on board, involve communities, etc. and then figure out where to go next. It isn’t just technology, it’s anything in organizations – but technology moves so quickly that we can seemingly are always playing catch up instead of leading.
I really think education colleges and universities need to be on the list. It would,Scott, probably, make your chances for career advancement more difficult, but that is also what’s slowing things down in other organizations. Job security for pioneers isn’t that great.
Although I don’t think post-secondary is off the hook, I think they could simply be an “other” in the list. In education, we like to look elsewhere instead of at ourselves a lot, and some may be accurate. Even so, our focus has to be where we can make an impact. If we do it well and provide well-prepared students to the next level, the pressure is then on them to meet the needs of their learners or lose them to those that will.
Other should also include: Technology itself: Programs and hardware that are inadequate in three years or less. The near impossibility for public education to keep current. Hardware and software that continually breaks down over and over again. Technology is what it is…
How about that district office is so afraid that they will lose control of it that they prefer to not embrace it… really.