Barriers to the effective use of technology in education

There are numerous barriers to the effective use of technology in education; these barriers vary according to different human, economic and technological circumstances affecting learners and institutions. 

As technology is an exceptionally large subject I will focus primarily here on ILT.

The barriers to effective use of technology in education often affect people in different ways, depending largely on their age and experiences. Older learners often have relatively lower computer literacy levels than younger learners. According to Petty older learners tend to have concerns about experimenting and exploring software (2004: 376). Younger learners by contrast, often have a tendency to be distracted by all the offerings of the web especially social media, gaming and entertainment. In terms of solutions, older leaners could benefit from training in small groups and being set tasks that encourage them to learn through experiment and practice, whilst younger learners could benefit from a teacher that is the good sense to encourage and steer young learner into using technology for educational purposes.

According to the cognitive psychologist and neuroscientist D. J. Levitin writing in the Observer today, image and link below, everyone in modern society who uses a smartphone is negatively affected by the constant updates and fiddling around with apps and argues that this stress is taking its toll on our ability to stay on task effectively.

'Modern world bad for brain', D. J. Levitin

In terms of economic circumstances, there are barriers for both students and learning institutions to overcome. The average college does not have enough laptops to be used freely amongst students in classrooms, are not always available and often do not function very well.  Also, not all classrooms are equipped with projectors or interactive whiteboards (Reece and Walker, 2007: 193).  For the future looking teacher, personal mobile technology in the form of a Smartphone or tablet would seem to be the best option.  This would be best for the effective use of technology in the classroom as these forms of technology tend to function well, are wireless, do not need pre-booking and are very responsive. However, an issue here would be that not all students have equal access to Smartphones. (Just fifty per cent of the learners I asked in my class had Smartphones).

Paradoxically, in my experience as a learner, it is technology itself that often is the greatest barrier to learning.  To give a few examples of this in my PGCE ICT class we had numerous problems setting up our blogs. When my class experimented with distance learning, no learners were able to communicate with the teacher; in fact in every ICT/ILT class I have attended on my course so far there have been technical problems and/or software glitches and bugs.  To quote from Geoff Elliot's blog: "The 'technology enhanced' teacher must be equipped not just with a good idea of how to use tech but she/he needs to deal with situations when the tech doesn't work properly. (Elliot, G. 2014)

In conclusion, while technology has amazing possibilities for teaching and learning we are still a way off it being a reliable and effective teaching and learning tool in education. Only through greater investment in technology for all at the individual and institutional level can the human, economic and technological factors, which hinder access to ICT, be overcome.

References

Elliot, G. (2014) 'The PGCE Gang'. Available at:  http://thepgcegang.blogspot.co.uk/?zx=30d070efd7dd370c [Accessed: 18th January 2015]
Petty, G. (2004) 'Teaching today' (3^rd ed.). Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes.
Reece, I. and Walker, S. (2007) 'Teaching, training and learning: a practical guide' (6^th revised ed.). Tyne and Wear: Business Education.

Bibliography

Levitin, D. J. (2015) 'Why the modern world is bad for your brain'. Available at

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jan/18/modern-world-bad-for-brain-daniel-j-levitin-organized-mind-information-overload [Accessed 18th January 2015].

Lifelong Learning UK, Professional Standards ITTS Bilingual. Available at: www.lifelonglearning.org [Accessed: 10th January 2015].

Petty, G. (2015) ‘Excellence in Teaching: Lesson Observation/Self Assessment Form’. Available at: http://geoffpetty.com/for-team-leaders/downloads/ [Accessed: 18th January 2015].
Teacher toolbox. Available at: http://www.teacherstoolbox.co.uk/T_Teaching_Intelligence.html [Accessed: 18th January 2015]