Why do you think teachers are sometimes reluctant to use technology in teaching?

Lack of time to plan, no training, lack of resources, and a belief that technology is not effective in teaching all received numerous votes. However, the majority of teachers couldn't choose a single response to this poll and selected "all of the above". Technology is thought to be a great resource for student learning and the category stating that technology is not effective received a very minimal amount of the responses. But if technology is an effective tool, teachers are sometimes reluctant to use it for a number of reasons.

If technology is here to stay, then we need to addresses teacher concerns about using it. Having time to plan the use of technology is a major concern, but lack of preparation time across the board it also a problem. The only way to solve this problem is to devote more funding to education in order for teachers to be given extra time for lesson preparation. Teachers shouldn't be working for hours each day after school in order to get ready for the next day or the next week.

Lack of training with technology and lack of resources in the technological field received similar numbers of votes in this poll. The first can be addressed by increased teacher training through professional development days or some other forms of extra courses. The second concern is simply a budget allocation issue.

Can you notice a theme to these issues? Funding, funding, funding. Increased educational funding is required to allow teacher's more preparation time, more training, and more resources. With the current state of budgetary woes this is unlikely to happen. Budgets are stretched so thin and cuts are being made in many areas of the education system. Where can this extra money come from?

Maybe we need to become more imaginative in how we deal with the chronic lack of funding. Bottle drives and bake sales should be able to buy a keyboard or two. How about a fundraising run? We could call it the Ultramarathon for Education. That has to be good for at least one training course for a couple of teachers. Let's put our heads together and come up with some great ideas. Surely, the government will listen to us, won't they?