Technology Adoption - Why or Why Not?

Thinking about early vs late technology adopters, a very important question comes to my mind: What motivates different people, and how can we match up the appropriate motivators for folks at different stages?

Thinking about my own workplace (a public school) and our readings from this week, what motivates me and my colleagues to be early adopters instead of late adopters is a combination of a dissatisfaction with the status quo and the availability of time to make a change. In education, time is precious and those of us who have been in it for a while know that not every shiny new thing is worth the time invested in the end. We need to be fed up enough with the situation to want to make a change and then we decide if we have the time to make that change with the new tech being offered. Often we are late adopters when these two conditions do not present themselves together. However, I am more inclined to run head first into a new piece of tech if I see added rewards for myself or my students in my practice embedded within the tool. Being younger than most of my colleagues, I have more knowledge and adaptability when it comes to learning new tech. My willingness to try new things means that I get to pass on the good stuff to my colleagues who know and trust that I have given them something good. This goes to show that having a strong network of peer-to-peer relations can affect adoption and maybe that's how it needs to be approached - target the early adopters in a community, incentivise the use of the program, and allow it to be passed on organically within the community through its own members.