A couple of reasons that might account for the lower numbers–

–Most of the teachers at my workshop teach elementary school age or younger children, and young children still don’t have cell phones. While there are exceptions, kids seem to get them between 4th and 6th grade–when they start doing lots of after school lessons on their own. And, I’ve had students tell me they didn’t have computers at home and then found out from parents that in fact, they did have a computer. The kids just weren’t allowed to use it.

–This time, I ran into some foreign teachers who didn’t have either cell phone or computer/internet at home. The reason? Their Japanese was too low to order the service, or they didn’t have adequate credit on their own to get service (and their schools wouldn’t act as guarantors or they weren’t working full time at any school). This one really surprised me–I’d never thought of language/credit as barriers.

The reaction seemed positive. While there were some very techy people in the audience, the majority started out with varying degrees of tech-apprehension, I think.

My goal was for everyone to walk out of the workshop with something they felt like they could do with their students. The teachers who came up after the workshops to talk all seemed to have come away with at least one tool they were ready to try.

I’ve heard from some who have made their way online, and they seem to be having fun.

Finding ways to help teachers use technology without the blessings of computer labs and broadband access has definitely become a focus for me. You are not alone–a lot of teachers I’ve met feel disenfranchised by new technologies!

If you come up with new ways to use some tech tools, I’d love to hear about it…..maybe a guest post?