Leading Horses to Water

So.  Yesterday was "Web-Tool Wednesday," which means that the technology facilitator and I put together a 45-minute lesson on interesting web tools and how to use them in the classroom.  Ideally, teachers come to the media center during their planning periods, listen, take notes, and then pass their new-found knowledge on to their colleagues who missed out on the session.

Exactly two people showed up. 

Not two per session, not two per period.

Two... ALL DAY. 
 
I thought our session was pretty exciting, and in every reminder e-mail I sent out, I made sure to emphasize that it was relevant to all subject areas.

High-school teachers are notoriously collaboration-phobic; this I knew.  I was guilty of collaboration-phobia myself for a while.  One particularly nasty semester, our assistant principal, working on his doctorate, insisted that each grade level teach everything (from colons and comma splices to Tolstoy and Twain) with the same lessons, using the same assignments, reading the same literature, using the same assessments, on the same schedule.  After that semester, I was collaboration-phobic for quite some time.  But, that particular system was forced "collaboration" (or, as I like to think of it, our own tiny version of Ingsoc).  And, in the years since, I did learn that real collaboration could be incredibly helpful.

I've known teachers who geek out at every little possibility; who get honestly excited when introduced to novelties like QR-code scavenger hunts or multimedia papers or student-created webquests.  There are also teachers who, left alone long enough, will teach the same thing every semester, until it becomes utterly rote, and introducing anything new just means more work to do.  I want to know how to reach both, to grab their interest and make Web-Tool Wednesday worthwhile.

All high school teachers, particularly high school English teachers, like to choose their own materials, like to plan their own lessons, and basically like to be left alone with their creativity.  I want to find ways to collaborate with them without threatening their individuality.

...and until I figure out just how to do that, I'm afraid that all I can do is lead my metaphorical horses to water; I can't make them drink it.