Barriers to 21st Century Tools

As evidenced by the litany of school boards, schools, and individual educators embracing 21^st Century teaching and learning tools, they have the potential to be extremely beneficial in the classroom. That said, implementing 21^st Century Tools does not come without a
few drawbacks, which I will discuss below. 

1) Existing infrastructure: Every school is unique, and has their own systems of technologies that they currently use. The question is – how do you incorporate 21^st Century Tools, which are very free form and constantly evolving with the infrastructure/technologies that already exist in the school? How do they mesh together in a way that can be educationally
beneficial?

2) Resistance: Consider the ‘good old days’ as a student – learning was lectures, notes, and textbooks as our only source of knowledge. For many of us, this is our learning background, and this creates resistance to learning new things. Many teachers do not see these 21^st Century tools as an advantage, find them gimmicky, or view them as distractions, not enhancements to learning.To paraphrase what Sir Ken Robinson says in the video below - they are trying to teach the future by repeating what's been done in the past.

3) Time: With most teachers, time is at a premium. It is difficult to find time in the day to get the ‘regular’ daytime stuff done in our job, let alone teachers with families, teachers who coach, or teachers who hold supplemental jobs. How are we supposed to find the time necessary to learn many of these 21^st Century tools? Now, having said that, it is my personal opinion that we as teachers do not need to be experts in all tools – just that we be accepting that students may
choose to use them when they produce things in school. If this is the mindset we take, it can make the incorporation of 21^st Century tools a bit more smooth.