The next morning we received a reply from the Russian teachers. They were amazed that the U.S. children knew and cared about the plight of their students. There is also much conservatism. For every new application of computers, people have to be convinced and won over anew. The fact that they praise their wordprocessor in no way means that they will be more receptive of, e.g., E-mail or databases.
Fear is often an indication of a lack of understanding.
A few people will discover by themselves what IT can do for them. But most people need explanations and good examples that they can get excited about. Listening to technicians does not help them much, since their languages are so far apart. Explaining to people what IT is, in order to enable them to make their own decisions, is a time-consuming and demanding task. That is much easier, since it can be done simply by adapting existing curricula.