This blog item I found via @berkshirecat, a New England teacher who I follow on Twitter, is a letter to teachers who are loathe to use technology.
The writer, Patrick Higgins, makes a snide case for the way technology helps teachers break out of what he implies to be unproductive or counterproductive traditions. He includes reasons for his shared loathing of technology, mimicking the subconscious complaints he imagines his change-fearing colleagues make for avoiding tech-integration in their classrooms.
“The fact that there will be conversations about topics in my class that occur UNABATED and not in my presence is inconceivable and incorrigible,” he writes. He then goes on to describe some teachers’ complaints about being asked to develop a broader range of student literacies that incorporate the increasingly complex media environment. “So I am with you, I think, in resisting this move, and I’ll do just what’s mandated of me by my building principal. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go close my classroom door...”
Take a look and tell me if Higgins’ somewhat cynical perceptions of tech-refusers is a fair assessment. Do you have any strategies for convincing colleagues of the value of technology in the classroom?