Why is there so much resistance?

Last month, we held our annual Curriculum Celebration.  Working with the Curriculum Resource Teacher, I suggested that we use it as a time to focus the faculty on educational technology.  I teach at a school where many seem focused on not letting technology become a part of the culture.  You go to meetings and hear all the excuses why we shouldn't bring tech into the classroom ranging from not every kid has a device to it is way to distracting for the students.  There is even a teacher that has a basket in front of his class and expects all the students to place their phones or devices so they don't use them at all in the classroom.

How do you work to encourage the use of technology more in the classrooms?  After using it in my classroom frequently, I know the benefit it has in making the classroom more engaging.  Now, this isn't to say that there are days where I still do a lesson without technology.  I am just tired of meeting resistance from the classroom and the administrators about the use of technology in the classroom.  My school is slipping further and further behind so many schools in the area and state because so many refuse to even try to see the importance of technology in the world outside the classroom. We used to be a leader in the district, but we are from it now!

So, if you're facing a school full of resistance like I am, here's my advice to you.  Stay the course with your integration of technology.  I have found I get more teachers on my side when I invite them into my classroom to see how a specific technology is being used.  This shows them how they can use it in their classroom as well.  Sometimes it is hard to sit at a training or read an article about technology and bring it to life in your classroom.  After inviting people a few times to my classroom to see Augmented Reality in use, one of our English teachers decided she would try it out in her classroom and created an amazing lesson for her Shakespeare unit that everyone else in the department loved so much, they used it as well.  I have now won over the English department.  Slowly, but surely, I know I'll have a majority of teachers on the side of technology that the others will feel alone in their complaints.

Be prepared to have a lot of questions from teachers as they start using various technology in their classroom.  I welcome the questions because it means they are trying to use it.

Hopefully, that will happen soon, for the sake of our students!