What Do Kids Say Is The Biggest Obstacle To Technology At School?

What Do Kids Say Is The Biggest Obstacle To Technology At School?

iPads. Interactive Whiteboards. Netbooks. Video games. Although educational technologies are being implemented more and more in classrooms across the country, we don't often stop and ask students - or their parents - what they think their technology needs are. But the newly-released Speak Up 2010 survey has done just that.

The project surveyed almost 300,000 students (along with 43,000 parents, 35,000 teachers, 2000 librarians and 3500 administrators) from over 6500 private and public schools last fall about how they're using - and how they want to be using - technology for learning.

The results are pretty fascinating, as they show great adoption of technology among even very young students, but lingering resistance on the part of school administrators to sanction some of those tools into the classroom.
The two major obstacles that students say they face at school: filters that stop them from accessing the websites they need for homework and bans on using their own mobile devices (namely cellphones) at school.