Barriers+Discussion-+New+Hampshire

Lack of hardware/infrastructure. Lack of wi-fi/filtering issues.

Server issues

As a culture, we tend to not look progressivly at learning.

Fighting tradition/cultural barriers

Time contraints. Time to use it, time to learn about it...

We play too many roles as educators

Finances. Two extremes of students (those who have the money to support technology and those who don't).

Hard to assess tech. Projects

NCLB/Standarized Accountability vs. what is good for students

Equipment problems. Fear of not accomplishing lesson plan because of hardware issues.

The institution of school (time contstraints)

Negativity spreads through the school when teachers have a bad experience with technology

Philosphical barriers. Are we hear to teach students or content?

Keeping everything going is hard.
 * “ time to think through where we want to go”
 * math perspective - “under the microscope” meeting the state standards, “making sure the content is being meet”. Making the technology to the standards
 * “Parent education needs to be done.” Not allowing kids to be online. Split households. Time
 * consistency with implementation is a weakness. Plus having the support of other teachers is important but does not always happen. Healthy competition from other teachers in technology would be helpful. I feel like I always take the lead. Time is an issue.
 * Difficult being in the leadership role. “Torn is so many different directions” “I wish I could streamline things and have more time to be focused”
 * Not putting enough time into learning the technology. Learning how to trouble shoot technology.
 * Money. “I have to go out and find money. How long can you get doing this? Where is the investment by the school board and community? We can't get doing this through grant money.”
 * Time to come up with a plan to with the technology and curriculum. Money.
 * The point of the lesson has gotten lost because of the technology. “Push back to the social part” of the technology. Balancing the technology and skills. Training them takes time away from teaching.

Technology is changing so fast and things are still blocked. Everything is so protected. Parents need to be convinced that kids will be safe. Teachers are willing and the school needs to catch up; **filters** are the problem.

Time is the problem! When we go back to our own classrooms there isn’t enough time to do it all.

NCLB! The way we assess! Keeps us focused on content learning. Assessment is driving curriculum. If able to change assessment we might look at a different way of teaching; project based learning.

Infrastructure! If everyone who wanted to use technology, did, the bandwidth would not be able to handle it. They keep cutting back support.

Resources! We don’t have nearly enough computers, projectors, working equipment, etc. other resources. It is hard to implement when we don’t have additional help.

Helping students become independent learners. It is a lot of work to do inquiry-based because students will not seek out answers for themselves.

Fear! Who is responsible if a child makes a bad decision. Fear of teachers who never really jumped on “technology band wagon!” School board members, principals, tech plan, etc. If we can’t connect than this will keep

School board and administration that does not share the vision we have. It is impacted learning because too much is tied into assessment.

Resources! Bandwidth issue. Just too big! Not enough working tools.

How much time we have to spend with each student. Upper levels do not have enough time with class periods being so short.

I think it is our SAU size. We are very large and it is hard to assess this work, monitor, set up accounts, etc. The barriers are “time, money and equipment”

Parent perception that technology is nto the appropriate way to educate their kids. They feel that someone should be accountable to teach their kids

Technology is changing so fast that you cannot keep up, “I know my curriculum but now it is new” Driven by inquiry and not knowing what questions they will be asking

Overwhelming, how am I going to change all this. How to get started

“an unwillingness to accept that they are not going to know it all, that they can learn from their students and that it is ok to not be the master. “ Uncomfortable

“Time is a big part of it the ability to become knowledgeable to learn.” What am I going to give up to do the technology. “Buy in from the community for them to see the worthwhile of it.” “The people have to understand that technology is always changing, it is constantly learning, that requires time.”

Doing things that are different in a way that different than the way we have bee doing it getting people to change

“Embrace change from community to administration to staff the kids want change, I want change but the staff is so scared.” “The 21s century learning scares them to death” “change and money” to keep up with the technology.

“Barriers come from different levels from teachers, to a different level above us that this is what we have been doing for so long and if you change we have to explain why and why it is better. And If I fail or it doesn’t work then I am going to get called on. “ The people that have been in place for a long time keep it the same.