I believe that the best ways to motivate teachers to use technology would vary from teacher to teacher. Everyone has some level of intrinsic motivation, it would be important to find out what that is for the teacher or teachers you are trying to motivate. For someone like me, all you would need to do is show me something new and I will work it into a lesson. I love technology so it really does not take much to get me motivated. I think most teachers want to engage their students. I've never heard any teacher say that they do not care if the students are involve or learn. At some level even the most resistant to technology want to be better and more effective in their classrooms.
I feel that it is important to assess what technology the teacher or teachers already use, whether in the classroom or on personal time. If a teacher only uses the computer for email then you have a starting point for properly integrating technology. You would not take that person and give them a smartboard and expect them to use it. That would be the fastest way to unmotivated a teacher, and is frequently what happens. I have been in so many classrooms that have an unused smartboard in it. The teacher was told it was being installed and trained once on the basics of what it does. They never see the full potential to use it in the classroom so they do not know. We would not do that to our students so why do we do it to our teachers? For that type of teacher you may start out with using a google doc for students to collaborate, and you could model it by using a shared document to discuss ways to implement it into a lesson. If you can ease teachers into it with collaboration and training teachers will be confident and confidence drives motivation.
I found this video and thought it was funny!
Funny video! I have not seen that one before! It is great that you are thinking about how other teachers must first be comfortable with the technology available to them and not to overwhelm. Often we run before we walk, which is often discouraging to teachers. Hopefully all teachers are reflective practitioners and are willing to better themselves. Teachers hopefully are motivated to improve their practice and this included changing and adapting to the times in which they work. Technology is one more addition to their working conditions. It is a disservice if teachers are not open to such. I agree with you. Starting out small and introducing things such as google docs would be a nice way to begin technology infusion. Even if there is not much technology available to the students in the school, teachers should still try ways to integrate technology into their own personal professional development. By starting out with webinars, and creating a professional learning community, technology will begin to make better sense.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely LOVED that video! It really gets people thinking! I also like the point you made about teachers becoming unmotivated because they are asked to use technology they are not trained to use. Its been mentioned before, but useful professional development targeted to the technology needs of each school needs to be done. Once teachers get the hang of using something they may become more open to using other types of technology in the future!
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