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According to a recent survey by the nation's two largest teachers' unions, most educators are enthusiastic about the role technology can play in improving learning, but many still feel unprepared to take advantage of digital tools in the classroom. What's stopping them? The persistent barriers include too few computers, a lack of technical support, and inadequate professional development.

VoiceThreads might best be described as interactive media albums. They are essentially online slide shows of images, documents, or videos that enable viewers to comment on any slide (or at any point in the video) by typing, recording an audio or video comment, or drawing on the image itself. Teachers have been early adopters of the easy-to-learn technology, which has led the company to launch Ed.VoiceThread.com, a secure site just for educators and their students, says VoiceThreads cofounder Ben Papell.

teachers with multiple sections and/or preps can easily customize information/ resources/ activities using Diigo's groups, lists, and conversations. This can all even be done at the time that a bookmark is made (I could send the bookmark to my 7th grade math group/ list, my pre-algebra group/ list, but not my 7th grade social studies group)

In the meantime, here are some of the suggestions folks have shared and I note them here to summarize the ideas for myself...I hope the summary is useful to you

Development of common interactive whiteboard format

Currently most content files developed for any one type of interactive whiteboard cannot be opened by the software of others. This means that it is not possible for teachers, the National Whiteboard Network, local authorities, or other content publishers to create content that can be used on the software of more than one type of interactive whiteboard. To tackle this problem Becta has, after completing a tendering process, appointed RM to develop a common industry-wide standard that will bring huge benefits to schools, allowing the exchange of resources within and between schools.

The aim of this development is to provide the industry with an interoperability standard, followed by demonstration of support for the format with the production of an open-source file viewer.

One of the tasks which ed tech coordinators are landed with is cajoling other teachers to use the technology in their lessons. And not just in a one-off or a tokenistic way, either. No! You’re expect to persuade them, somehow, that this is the way of the future and that they should therefore cast aside all their old, non-techie teaching methods and step into this brave new world.

Fundamentally, what you need to have in order to succeed as an ed tech coordinator, is not so much a technical understanding of computers, but an intuitive understanding of people.

I reasoned that nobody in, say, the English department would listen to me telling them how they could improve their teaching of English if they used the right software or device. But they probably would listen to one of their co-workers in the same department.