going to answer it based on my experience teaching teachers to use
technology as LMT of Sierra High last year.
In my experience, teachers need to fully understand the technology
they are going to use long before they will ever use it in their
classrooms under the scrutiny of students. One way to help them is
to run lessons during their prep or better yet, during days districts
allow for on-site inservice. I used to teach the teachers how to
create and use a Filamentality page so their students could use the
Internet for a controlled lesson the teacher wanted to teach. After
the initial one day lesson on set-up, the teachers would need at
least two more days of training. The second day would be for the
same teachers to come back to work on their Filamentality lesson with
my assistance and troubleshooting. They would then need at least one
more day of "exploration" where they could work on their lesson
without any pressure, and still have me there to assist if needed. I
believe in this last day of training but unfortunately, some people
take advantage of it and don't do work on this last day so districts
and administrators don't see its value.
I'm not saying I'm an expert, but I was put in a position to teach
teachers and I know they never had a chance to feel completely
comfortable with the technology, even though they knew its value.
So, LMTs should help teachers by introducing a new technology,
teaching the new technology, and making sure teachers have some time
for exploration in their presence until a certain comfort level is
reached if they want to see teachers integrating technology.
