With all the buzz in the news about education technology, one would think that teachers were integrating cutting-edge teaching tools into their lesson plans faster than edtech startups could pump them into the market.
But according to a nationwide survey by the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA), that isn’t exactly the case. The report on their findings, presented at the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference and expo in June 2013, suggests that technology integration in schools remains virtually unchanged from last year and still falls far short of the organization’s determined ideal.
So, what’s going on here? What could be standing in the way of effective technology integration in the classroom? It’s certainly not a lack of innovation on the supply side. Let’s take a look at some of the data and see if we can’t shed some light on things.
The Facts on the Ground
According to SIIA, edtech integration is lagging in all sectors. Postsecondary institutions do seem to have made a relatively successful effort to make use of educational technology in their coursework — perhaps so much so that the perceived importance of continuing to integrate tech at the college level has fallen since last year — but the K-12 educators surveyed reported some troubling truths.