Why Ed Tech Is Not Transforming How Teachers Teach: Another cost of too little computing literacy

I believe the result described in the article below, that a critical limitation of teacher’s ability to use technology is too little understanding of technology.  In a sense, this is another example of the productivity costs of a lack of ubiquitous computing literacy (see my call for a study of the productivity costs).  We spend a lot on technology in schools.  If teachers learned more about computing, they could use it more effectively.

In 2010, for example, researchers Peggy A. Ertmer of Purdue University, in West Lafayette, Ind., and Anne T. Ottenbreit-Leftwich of Indiana University, in Bloomington, took a comprehensive look at how teachers’ knowledge, confidence, and belief systems interact with school culture to shape the ways in which teachers integrate technology into their classrooms.
One big issue: Many teachers lack an understanding of how educational technology works.
But the greater challenge, the researchers wrote, is in expanding teachers’ knowledge of new instructional practices that will allow them to select and use the right technology, in the right way, with the right students, for the right purpose.

via Why Ed Tech Is Not Transforming How Teachers Teach – Education Week.