Stages of Technology Integration

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Entry:  The Denial Stage…If I don’t acknowledge it, it is not happening. 

Adoption:  The Ok Stage…I will book my airline tickets, but that’s IT. 

Adaption:  The "My friend showed me this really cool presentation software.  I’ll give it a shot" Stage...  If I can’t get this to work, I can always go back to the overhead!

 

 

 

 

Ahhh....Those were the days!

It was back in 1982 when I remember seeing the neighbor’s Apple PC for the first time.   They were the first people I knew to have a computer in their house.  I remember thinking, “what are they going to do with that?”  I knew, from the school librarian, that you could play some games on them and that you could do word processing.  (In order to do anything, even run a game on a floppy, you had to be able to type some DOS.  If you messed anything up, it was a mess to fix!)  Computers back then were not nearly as intuitive as they are now and I think that stays with some people who did not grow up “digital natives”. 

The 21st Century

Thankfully, I believe that we are getting farther and farther away from the worries that came with those first PC’s and everyone (even my 79 year old mom) is getting more comfortable with technology.  It is really true that this is mostly due to technology getting more comfortable for us.  All you have to do is spend 5 minutes on an iPad and you have probably figured out how to play a game or look at pictures or find The Weather Channel.  Of course, there are some people, (like my dad who still has to call me when he presses the wrong button on the cable remote) for which, technology will remain a mystery, but those people are becoming few and far between.  

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Paving the Way

In my role as a school librarian, I expect to meet some resistance with regards to my colleagues when it comes to technology.  It only makes sense.  Just because I think something is terrific and will make the math teachers job easier doesn’t eliminate that learning curve for them.  I have heard many of my peers and professors say that when it comes to advocating for technology with teachers, less is more and that you have to just keep at it till you get some collaboration.  Many times, they say, you find a new teacher who is on board with you and then others may follow.  I am looking forward to that first tech collaboration and being able to help out a colleague.

Be Brave

For a lot of people who want to embrace technology, like myself, I think the best thing is to just “be brave”.  Don’t worry about messing things up.  Sometimes it is best to just jump in there and play around with whatever you are interested in doing.  Long gone are the days of DOS and worrying that if you type the wrong command you will never get your computer back.  You really can’t “break” modern technology, so just sticking with it can get you where you want to go and can actually be fun if you are in the right mindset.  I think this is where I am.  I might add a stage after adaption, like, experimentation:  the stage where you actually are figuring it all out on your own and having some fun with it!