Technology integration in education has given great benefits to the industry, but with some new challenges. Here is a list of some of the major challenges that nowadays school tech leaders face. Have a look.
Equity: Due to BYOD i.e. Bring Your Own Device strategies and solutions, student-focused technology has elevated new fears about digital divide. Digital divide means the differences between families that are equipped with internet service and those who have no connectivity of the internet.
Funding: Funding is yet another challenge being faced by the school while integrating technology. In a report it was mentioned, “Typically, technology expenditures geared to the business of running a schools or district take priority over the instructional uses that are key to a 21st century education.”
Bandwidth and Infrastructure: Methods like one to one initiatives, Bring Your Own Device, online assignments, and other initiatives that involve technology, requires bandwidth and infrastructure than ever before.
Community Support: It is really hard to implement technology in education when teachers think that technology in education will jeopardize their job, parents who recall school before the day technology has entered in the education.
Changing Mindsets: One of the biggest challenges faced by the school or the educators is to keep focus of the students in the learning from the device rather than on the device. Technology experts must learn how to see different things from a teacher’s point of view and should work closely with educators.
PD/Training and Support for Staff: PD for staff is frequently ignored or lacks continuity. Helping teachers and tech staff to see the great power of technology is a major task. PD is very much required, learning new methods to pedagogy needs constant PD and continuing support from specialists who know the classroom. To make the school staff understand the effective use of technology for teaching and learning, continuity is required, which is quite challenging for schools.
Cracked Leadership: Lack of vision from leaders and disintegration and separation are the major issues. However, tech leaders are increasingly being combined into top-level management, it is still a big task to insure that everyone sit down together and formulate plan by which technology can be used to support education.
Security: Though a lot of tech leaders believe in having easy open access of the digital tools in schools to all users, they need to create a balance as it is also essential to conform the legal necessities and keep students safe and secure, and protect their technologies from viruses, hackers, and breaches.
Technical Challenges: A rapid use of teacher and student owned mobile devices within the school networks as well as need for online assessments have enhanced the complications. Technical challenges also include that by the time purchasing decisions have been made by the users or they have learnt how to operate a particular tool, the technology may be out of date.
High-Stakes Testing: With testing procedure going to online, there is alarm that valued tech resources would be diverted from teaching to assessment.
I am sure you must have faced similar educational technology challenges in your school. What are the solutions to your challenges? Share them in the comment box.
This article first appeared here.
