Isn't it ironic?

Yesterday we had an in-service on using technology in the classroom. The speaker assumed that we teachers lack initiative, or are afraid to use technology. This is patently false. The fact is we're simply restricted by district policy. This very blog is off-limits to my students. So I got to listen (for almost 2 hours!) to an expert extoll the virtues of educational technology, all the while knowing that many of his ideas, such as having students set up blogs (something I introduced 3 years ago), are simply forbidden. Obviously, he should have tailored his presentation to fit our policy. Today, instead of having students maintain a blog, they create a Word document and write. It's not the same as blogging, and they don't write on their own time, something many of my former students did. In addition, they view writing on a blog as something enjoyable and personal, with the added bonus that it's published on the Web. Writing a Word document feels like work to them.

In my Mass Media class, I have tried to show clips from sites such as Youtube, only to have access denied. Yes, much of what is on there is useless to me as a teacher, but the course demands access to sites that are restricted. Even in my literature classes I cannot show clips of previous student projects, where they reenacted scenes from Beowulf or Lord of the Flies. Isn't it ironic that innovations in teaching are so frequently met with roadblocks?