Overcoming adversity to new technologies using motivational techniques

I had a great deal of difficulty getting the OK to install a new weather station on the roof of our school in Philadelphia. The technological enhancements for our science course included the weather station and an online interface, as well as an auxiliary course by the American Meteorological Society. We had ample budget, but justifying the cost as well as explaining the different functions was quite trying. The attitudes were quite negative. The behaviors demonstrated a low interest in learning anything about new technologies.
What I finally did came right off the materials from the AMS! It said: "Conduct a workshop for the administration and faculty..." And so I did. It followed the ARCS model fairly accurately!
The workshop contained a hands-on lab - real hands on real paper - drawing numbers at your fingertips over and over as you drew your palm upward and around to demonstrate the wind flows at high and low pressure systems. This really got their attention - and about the time that the data came streaming in from an online weather source, the classroom was abuzz with enthusiam and most everyone was busily making predictions for the following day's weather! Confidence was way up and, by the brightness of their eyes and their laughter, I knew the satisfaction was high and I had a winner!
By the way, the course itself did extremely well in terms of student engagement and comprehension of the major concepts.