I am a 1st year Tech Coordinator. I taught elementary school for the past 10 years. I need to get teachers to use technology daily in their classrooms to enhance their instruction and the curriculum. I have done staff development and provided resources. I need more! What are some successful strategies to get teachers using technology? Thanks!

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Yes, incorporating technology takes a lot of personal TIME. Learning anything new takes a lot of personal time, but once it's done, it saves time for future reference. I try to take small steps, so it doesn't become overwhelming. Teachers first have to have the desire to incorporate.... that is paramount. Where there is a will there is a way.
I believe it is important to provide many mini classes throughout the year and a handbook so teachers can go back and look through the information on their own. Many times the teacher is in the workshop and then goes home to continue working. At home they get frustrated and can't remember what to do next. Once this happens they get frustrated and quit. If they had a packet of info and directions they can use the technology at home without getting frustrated.
Hope this helps!
I agree, teachers need the materials to follow up after a workshop--especially if it's in the summer!! Andrew Churches has developed "starter sheets". I think they would make a great handout even if the teacher is new to the tool.
I'm going to take the ones I need, print them on cardstock and have them laminated. Then my kids can use them.
What a great site...Thank you for the link!
Doing regular staff development about a standard instructional strategy, and having the teachers USE the technology to learn about it. I find myself in the same position as you often, but I am attempting to do all varieties of staff development. Coincidentally, I just (today) blogged about how I have been dealing with this!
There are many free elearning tools for you to use. These could give you some help in your future teaching and learning and make you teaching more effective.
http://www.classroom20.com/profiles/blogs/top-elearning-tools-of-2009
I think it's really important to give them the how-to of the process, as teachers are often overloaded with work and can't spare time to learn about all this new stuff. I found this document very interesting/useful as it discusses different digital tools that can be used for different purposes. it's a glimpse of what's out there and what to use it for.It's great for reference. I hope you like it.
Attachments:
I got this website from Mary MacKay's newsletter. I love that she is a classroom teacher putting the best of the web out there for all of us. I have been technology resources teacher in this building for 8 years. I have seen veteran teachers scared to touch a keyboard, now making Promethean flipcharts, imovies, video conferencing. I say they are atypical. A teacher needs to want to integrate technology. This is what I did. It is by all means not the Holy Graille of ideas but it worked. I took their classes into the lab and did a tech rich lesson for them. The kids were so excited. Each week I modeled how easy it was to do. I constantly took them aside and told them each step along the way how I did it.
Eventually, they asked if we could... do anything else along the lines of what I had demonstrated. I love to teach, and having a class in the lab that was mine for 45 minutes was a real treat. I love creating tech rich lessons and having a class to do them with was extraordinary. Show them and they will come around. Be patient. Not all teachers in my building are as receptive. But when they put up brilliant bulletin boards from your lesson, people start to talk. Good luck.
Hope this helped.
I am part of a technology group where each participant is provided with a laptop, document camera, infocus projector and 35 student response devices for the students. These are provided to the teachers as long as the teachers agree to attend five full day training sessions, blog every few weeks on the technology and agree to use the equipment as much as possible.

It is a lot of work to make interactive power point incorporating the response devices and finding the streaming videos for the math sections I am teaching. I would use my technology equipment even more if I had more pre-made power points and units. Your teachers will use the technology more if it is not too much work for them. Thus, the more pre-made items you provide to the teachers the more they will use tech in the class. Also, going into classrooms and teaching a class using technology will really show the teachers how successful this is.

Jody
May the force be with you
I spoke with some English teachers about blogs/wikis/forums and they had these issues:
this is just one more thing we don't have time for
how does it really help

I guess my job is to really convince them of the bang for the buck they will get (collaboration amongst students which is impossible without an online space)
Colin---I'm not married to the new technologies, I use some new, some old, some not at all. BUT, big BUT the one tool I am sold on it our student blog. I've noticed over the last 3-4 years that elementary student are doing very little writing in the regular classroom (IMO, NCLB has taken that time away). Students report to me, I teach in a special ed pullout program for gifted kids, that ALL the writing they do in the classroom is assigned, even "creative writing" and many times the writing is not edited at all. SO, what our student blog has done for my students over the last 2.5 years, is to allowed them to write about topics of interest, current events, books, social situations, familiy life, whatever etc. They have also had the opportunity to reflect on what others think and put their thoughts down in writing. Sometimes parents blog with their kids.

Our "rinky dink" little blog has recieved 53,000 visits from 34,000 unique computers since August 7, 2007. We have had visitors from 102 countries and territories. That is a heck of a lot of readin' and writin'. If your teachers want an easy outlet for authentic writing, try a classroom blog. Whew---felt like a preacher there!! N.

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