I taught for nine years as an English teacher, and tack on an additional year as a computer teacher, and I’ve arrived at several reasons why teachers resist using technology with their classes: 1) It’s time consuming and a waste of time, 2) They feel intimidated by their students’ knowledge, and 3) the final products are substandard and disappointing.

I recall several of my classes as an English teacher, and we might spend many days in the computer lab and the quality and level of final products didn’t seem worth the time.  Many of the assignments were poorly written, copied and pasted from other websites, or incomplete or unfinished.  Keeping students on task and not on the Internet is a serious frustration for certain groups of students, especially the student who is failing.  I witness many teachers afraid of looking stupid using technology in front of their students.  Teachers wish to appear competent with their students, and strugglng with a software application doesn’t help their reputation.  They feel sometimes that they have little to teach them while working with students on a technology product.  Finally, technology projects require time to prepare and anticipation to the types of obstacles that might occur.  You’d think that with how long we’ve had computers in our schools, computers would be less prone to breaking down or losing data.  This is not the case.

In assisting teachers and students in a lab situation on a regular basis, I recognize the need to be prepared.  Students at my school are unable to type an extended web address into the browser correctly.  If you give them it on a paper, you will have to scramble around the lab to explain how they typed an extra space or mispelled a word.  Teachers commonly create assignments that allow for copying and pasting from web resources and not writing it in their own words.  Sometimes their expectations for a technology project are unrealistic and too difficult for a novice computer user.  Similar to math or writing, students are on a spectrum of familiarity and competency.  A five slide presentation is sometimes enough to convey the message well.  I can sympathize with teachers and why they resist technology, and we should stop saying what teachers “need” to do, and take them where they are at and encourage them to make small strides toward embracing technology that will help their students learn.