Field Experience: IT Interview

The field experience assignment for my Learning Through Technology course was to interview an educator who utilizes technology or integrates technology through his/her curriculum. As a teacher, I have had the opportunity to do much of the latter. I am fortunate to have a variety of technological tools in my classroom including a SMART board, iPad, and flip camera. All of my students also have iPads, which has opened up the curriculum, instruction, and assessment to a variety of pathways. With that said, I chose to focus my field experience on the utilization of technology. I interviewed Tom, our IT Manager. Tom has worked as a technology integrator and director at a number of schools. He joined our staff in January of this past year and he is responsible for installing hardware, system management, and server configurations. Tom also manages our ticket system for trouble shooting and student/staff accounts and folders.

Image Citation

1. We have number of technological tools in our classrooms. How are you gathering data on student and staff use of technology?

We have used student and staff surveys to gather data on technology use, professional learning needs, and the ticket system. This past year, Carin (our IT Integrator) did a series of classroom walk-through's to get a better feel for how students and staff were using technology. The District Technology Team created a number of uses and/or activities they were looking for and Carin would just check off whether or not it was happening. A walk-through doesn't always tell you the complete story but it gave us a better idea of how technology was being used. 

2. How have the surveys and walk-through's helped to inform the professional learning opportunities for the upcoming school year? 

Several of the surveys told us that the staff wanted more iPad specific training around applications, presentations, and iMovie. We are offering content specific application training early in the year and will focus on presentation tools after that. Hopefully the application training will spark increased iPad use among both staff and students. The walk-through's indicated a need for SMART board refreshers for staff members and Google training for both staff and students. The seventh and eighth grade students will have Google training once a week in September and we are still working on plan for high school students. 

3. I'm assuming that the walk-through's indicated that a number of students were using iPads for non-academic purposes. How can we better manage or restrict the uses of technology by our students?

The seventh and eighth graders keep their iPads on classroom carts and don't have access to the Play Store. We didn't observe much misuse at that level. The high school students are another story. They can take the iPad home and they can download games, use snap chat, etc. on the iPad. It is not a huge concern of ours because students always find a way to be off task and this is just how this generation of students does it. If we restrict the access on the iPad any further than we already have we will create a culture that says we don't trust the students, which will also limit their ability to explore on the iPad and the web. It will also invite some students to find a away around the restrictions, which is another concern to consider if we restrict its uses any further. 

4. How can we do a better job of using the technology to keep students on task?

It starts and ends with continuous professional learning. The staff need consistent training on ways that technology can support the curriculum. The new professional learning plan hits on technology each month and that should help staff members of all levels of technology integration to find ways that technology can be better utilized in the classroom, whether the training is something new or just a refresher. I think people with walk away with a number of ideas of how technology can be used for formative assessment and that should be very appealing to the students. 

5. What does our technology plan look like three to five years from now? 

We are currently adding fiber lines from the server at the high school to the elementary school and the technology building that will increase the bandwidth considerably. That will allow for us to improve our out dated phone system and better support our 1:1 environment. With the infrastructure that we have in place we are considering desktop virtualization which runs through a server system and allows users to access the operating system and applications anywhere in the school building. It is much more economical and easier to manage. 

I have had the opportunity to work with Tom for the past six weeks and his thoughts on technology have changed my mindset considerably, particularly around the importance of professional learning. In a previous blog post (and from my frame of questioning), I noted that I had been considering the idea of adding restrictions around technology in our school system but my conversations with Tom (and Carin) have made me think about the problem differently. In order to get the students to use technology for academic purposes and less for gaming and chatting, we need to spend more of our professional learning time to educate our teachers about technology use in the classroom. We have several professional learning goals but this doesn't have to be done independent of or at the risk of not achieving those goals. Our goals related to differentiated instruction, project-based learning, and school climate and culture can, and should, involve technology integration. With this mindset, I am confident that staff use of technology will increase as will student engagement and work artifacts.