The Key Challenge: People, Not Equipment
The key technology challenge schools face is integrating it into classroom teaching and learning. More than half of survey respondents (56 percent) identify integrating technology into the classroom or learning experience as their top technology challenge. The same percentage (56 percent) also cites teacher professional development as their top challenge, another way of looking at the main impediment to effective use of technology - people with inadequate training. Only 1 percent of all school leaders say technology integration is no problem at all, while only 2 percent say inadequate professional development creates no barriers.
Fewer than one in 10 school leaders (7 percent) consider their teachers' skills at integrating technology into the learning experience to be "very good" or better. Overall, school leaders give their teachers a failing grade (5.3 out of 10) on this measure of professional competence. Even in districts with seeming advantages, teachers' skills remain the Achilles heel. Only 16 percent of school leaders in high-tech districts - those with the most technology equipment and highest reported use of technology - give their teachers high marks in this area. Only 15 percent of school leaders in small districts and only 13 percent of school leaders in wealthy districts rate their teachers highly in integrating technology into classroom teaching and learning. The need for professional development cuts across districts nationwide.
Integrating technology into classroom teaching and learning is especially problematic for the poorest school districts; 64 percent of school leaders in these districts cite technology integration as their top challenge. Similarly, 61 percent of school leaders in low-tech districts cite technology integration as problematic.
Another frequently cited barrier to technology use in schools also amounts to a people problem - the lack of technical support, including hardware maintenance, updating and upgrading. This is a particularly acute problem for the nation's poorest and largest school districts; 66 percent of school leaders in the poorest districts and 56 percent of those in the largest districts point to lack of technical support as a key challenge.