ABSTRACT
N. Selwyn and J. Spring foreground the political nature of technology and reiterate the influence of the stakeholders involved when the use of educational technology is introduced, developed and supported. These perspectives are particularly important in the context of academic research. Barriers to the introduction and integration of technology are a common theme in education. A possible solution to the barrier of time could be to allocate more time within the set class times to introduce the students to the use of virtual worlds and then allocate a portion of time on a weekly basis, within the set tutorial times, to use the virtual world. Ease of access was another barrier cited by participants and was linked to the barrier of time. One of the barriers that is unique to virtual worlds relates to the immersive nature of technology. A barrier that is unique to ITE students is the perception of the problems they might encounter in a K-12 classroom.
