Ideas for stimulating teachers to integrate technology into their teaching

In the last post I mentioned that I will be talking about my ideas to stimulate teachers to think about technology integration in their teaching.

Integrating technology into content and pedagogy is a creative task. A teacher is an education designer at the micro level. She has the context of her school and classroom, she has her audience as children, she has her goals as the standards to be achieved and like a designer and she needs to design a relevant and effective lesson plan which teaches the required concept through and appropriate pedagogy using appropriate technology. It can be just her using it or better, helping her students use it to arrive at an understanding about the topic being taught.

This is no simple task and is a skill learnt over time with practice. It requires creativity, to think differently than the normal and to push oneself into an uncomfortable zone, which teachers usually resist. It means trying out new things, being comfortable with failures and mistakes and learning on the job. i.e.  while teaching.

Why would teachers want to be creative? How can we as educational designers create environments where teachers become more creative and have fun being curious and discovering new things? One of the critical factors is the school environment. Some systems can kill creativity and other ones can foster it. If creativity, innovation, critical thinking is valued, then the members of that system soon learn to adopt it.

Integrating technology can cause chaos in the beginning. Teachers will try different pedagogies and content. They will try to use different activities and in the process accept some and reject some. This can only happen in a school context which accepts that chaos is inevitable, but out of this chaos will come the real semblance of the order. An order which is developed and owned by teachers themselves. So the first idea is a nurturing environment which encourages creativity and exploration!

The second idea seeing is believing. It means that to get conviction into something is difficult if just talked about as a concept. We need a live example, a model or a demonstration that it works. Therefore it can be liberating to show teachers an example of technology integration into teaching. Therefore observations  and site visits of other schools and classrooms doing it is an important way to open minds to re-look at their current way of thinking of teachers and breaking the belief that it is not possible.

Easy access and a repertoire is the basis for stimulating teachers to think about any technology. For example, how a camera, a digi board, a CD rom, a TV can be used. Just letting teachers fidget and explore these technologies can get them thinking of ideas as to when, where and how these can be used.

Another important way of stimulating teachers is talk about technology integration, to dialogue about the issues and challenges and possible solutions. Dialogue helps teachers put into words their fears, apprehensions, constraints and all the barriers they have towards technology. It can be insightful for both teachers and for the education designers – the education designers can know what are the resistance and can address them through dialogue or other interventions.

The fifth idea or strategy is to always start with few enthusiastic teachers. There are always two or three teachers who know and are willing to know technology integration. Once these teachers start doing, slowly a critical mass will develop. These catalysts will talk about the benefits and slowly the other bunch of non doers will be forced to think about it.

Stimulation increases with participation and ownership. Teachers need to feel the need for technology integration. If it is just imposed, technology just might be used, but not integrated. Teachers need to own the process of integration. It might be in making ICT policy at school or making new curriculum with technology or just simply using the technology. They need to be in charge of the process. The others as school administration and management and experts should be on the periphery to provide support as and when needed.

An interesting aspect is of all these ideas/ strategies/ approaches is that one needs to understand where teachers are and what are their barriers and therefore slowly try and address these. Each of these ideas can be used as a part of professional development program, in the organizational structure. A combination of these ideas can definitely help teachers shed their old ways of thinking and being more creative in their use of technology in their classrooms rather than just using them.