Fear Factor
I have been thinking lately about fear and the fear some educators adults have about technology. When did we stop exploring? When did it all of a sudden become dangerous to click on something that we did not know the outcome to? Is it because of viruses? Or are we just afraid that the computer will blow up?
At what age do we lose this sense of exploration, the adventure of risk taking where we cannot predict the outcome?
Maybe it has nothing to do with fear. Maybe it has to do with experience. We just do not have the experience with this new technology to have the comfort level that allows us to explore and take risks.
I mean how many of us grew up playing with computers as if they were Legos? 
This technology causes fear in us because we do not understand it. We did not experience (like this little one above) the computer through a means of exploration. No, by the time we were introduced to the computer we were already at a stage where we were afraid that if we hit the wrong button, or clicked the wrong thing, that the computer might blow up. Of course, we all heard the horror stories of friends losing data and viruses taking over machines. That of course made us more cautious. Is this part of the reason our students are so much more advanced than we are as a generation?
My job and I believe the job of every educational technology person is to help people get over this fear. We should be encouraging them to explore these amazing machines. This year we have loaded some very cool programs onto every teacher computer, and created shortcuts on the desktop so they had easy access to programs such as Skype, Google Earth, Second Life, and Scratch just to name a few. Yet I wonder how many teachers have not even clicked on one of these shortcuts to see what happens. Most have not even deleted the shortcuts even though they never plan to use them.
On the other end I had my first complaint today (two weeks into school) that the kids are playing with Google Earth all the time, and now this program called Google Sketch Up is all the rave. 
I have two more trainings coming up this next week, and the first thing I am going to ask all my teachers to do is to click on something they have always wondered about, always thought "What would happen if....." I will be in the room to pull them out of the way if their computer explodes. I want to try to bring them to a place that allows them to explore their machines, allows them for just a minute to be supported as they explore these new technologies. We do not explore enough, we know the programs we know and that’s what we know. As Educational Technology Leaders, we must support teachers, parents, and students to expand there thinking on what computers can do. To, like this father, hold them up and allow them to bang away for a while and see what happens. Without the support they will never do it, they do not know this tool the way a 10 year old does, we are immigrants in a foreign land. We go where we are comfortable, where others like us go to gather: Word, Excel, and Publisher.
It is time to push, it's time to expand our thinking and it's time to support educators so that they too feel like they can explore these new tools, and think about new ways to change teaching and learning.
Encourage them to click on something they have never clicked on before...and just see what happens.
Comments
Today when someone told me they didn't want to learn one more new thing, they didn't like new things I asked if they would like a new car? Well yes, was the response! Hm, how do you like figuring out all those new car things? End of conversation, with me anyway.
Posted by: Cheryl Oakes | August 31, 2007 2:03 AM
Call me a geek, but I have noticed the more I empower teachers with "under the hood" concepts of how computers work, such as: how few parts they have to break, how relatively easy they are to return to their pre-explored (re-imaged) state if something was to go wrong, and how to enable the teacher as a troubleshooter- the more they are willing to explore freely like you have described above.
I call it demystifying the machine. It was the core of the training I use to give when I was onsite in a school setting.
Just like efficacy is tied to student success, I feel the more confident a teacher is about the machine the more they will exploration what you provide for them.
Great post as usual Jeff! Thanks!
Posted by: Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach | September 1, 2007 12:36 PM
Nice article. This is an excellent entry. Teacher often say they don't have time, or they can because the administrators have locked down their computers. My favourite way of testing new software is to unleash my senior IT students at it and let them tell me how it works. They can pick it up, pull it apart and tell you tricks and traps you would never have found by yourself.
Give it to the natives - they will show us immigrants the way. And when the immigrants have it sorted - show the digital emigrants the worked examples the student engagement and the learning outcomes and perhaps this will convert them too
Posted by: Andrew Churches | September 4, 2007 12:42 AM
As an ICT facilitator for nine schools, I come up against this time and time again. People sit there waiting for me to spoon feed them every piece of information. When we do set up an activity in such a way as to be almost full proof, it is so disheartening to hear teachers comment later on that they got too busy and it was impossible to manage. Yes - it is hard at times with one computer to a classroom - but it is more about the attitude of the teacher to ICT than it is about the management. Teachers manage children working independently on other non-computer tasks while teaching small groups so they could make it work if they were really committed to doing so.
I am always surprised that people won't just 'give it a go'. I just try out things to get the hang of them. I consider myself almost a digital native and I guess it is hard to understand why other teachers get so worked up over ICT (especially when I am really patient and not at all threatening!)
Anyway - enough of a rant! This just caught me in a tired moment :-)
Posted by: Suzie Vesper | September 7, 2007 1:38 PM
Geoffrey Moore explored this phenomenon in depth back in the 80s in his classic "Crossing the Chasm", which explained why new technology usually fails to get adopted. While he was talking about getting new tech to commercial markets, the same principles apply to all adoption. The fact is that the vast majority of people will not adopt new technology until someone just like them has already adopted it. His suggestion - find someone who needs it badly enough that, if the price is low enough (in this case the support level is high enough) they will adopt. Then, after a suitable delay, some of their peers will adopt, and after more delay many of their peers, and so on.
Unfortunately, the phenomenon does not generalize from one technology to another. Each one has to cross the chasm from scratch. And, also unfortunately, the technology enthusiasts among your users do not serve as comforting references for regular users, who know enough to discount the behavior of geeks in sheep's clothing.
My colleagues and I have just released QlipBoard a product that we know, from extensive testing, can be used by pretty much anyone with pretty much zero training. It lets a non-technical user create a compelling multimedia explanation in a few minutes. But the fact that it is that easy will not spare QlipBoard from the same chasm crossing experience as every other technology, because the chasm is built into the psyches of the users themselves.
Posted by: Chris Beall | September 10, 2007 7:10 AM