Dave,
Your posting and your response to Stephen struck a chord with me. When you wrote,”We are all salespeople in the new media revolution,” I felt that you really understood the reality of many students and teaching practitioners.
I teach pre-service and practicing teachers about educational uses of the Internet. Having taught in a public school classroom for over 30 years, and also been a student myself during many of those years, I know that for both teachers and students TIME is a very valuable commodity. In order to encourage teachers to buy into using educational technology, we have to really be salespersons, showing them the pedagogical benefits of using certain tools while recognizing that these tools must be used as judiciously as any other teaching methods. We also have to acknowledge to them that specific tools are transitional. The important point is for them to realize the interactive nature of the changing classroom and be willing to try out some tools that will help them test and become comfortable with that idea by using one or two tools. That takes some real salesmanship!