Interview Abstract
I conducted my interview with my school administrator (Zelda) on Friday, January 12th 2018 from 11:45 to 12:15. The interview took place at a school in British Columbia. Zelda has been teaching for 15 years and has been an administrator for 5 years. Three key words that caught my attention during the interview were empowerment, challenging, and collaboration.
Empowerment:
Zelda emphasized the power of technology and how it can empower students to take charge of their learning especially those students that are at-risk, those with fine motor issues, students with dyslexia, English Language Learners, and those who are blind/vision impaired. Zelda stated that those students with fine motor issues “the thought of a paper-pen task is daunting and that technology can motivate those students and help relieve stress.” Zelda stated that text-to-speech technology like Kurzweil “gives students the opportunity to have access to programs that are at their level.” Technology can inspire “those at-risk learners both in and out of the classroom as it enables them to comprehend and retain concepts, especially in math and helps them to break it down one piece at a time.”
Challenging:
According to my notes on Zelda, technology integration is and can be extremely challenging due to a number of reasons. The implementation of technology needs to be thoughtful; you cannot just throw technology at students. To really “utilize technology to meet the needs of students, there is a huge commitment piece for teachers and this is an immense challenge in itself.” Many educators do not want to use technology due to time constraints, accessibility, reliability, lack of skill-set, and a big reason is that technology can be intimidating. Zelda stated that “people do not want to look stupid in front of students or colleagues but they do not want to put the time in to learn and experiment.” One of the most challenging things is that although “there are six smartboards in the school, no one is using them” and “a lot of educators are overwhelmed that “their students know more about using technology than they do and they need to be okay with this.”
Collaboration:
“Technology can be a great way for colleagues to work together and can allow for a more tech-savvy educator to teach others how to integrate and use technology within their classrooms.” Zelda emphasizes that not only can technology enhance collaboration between student-student but between teacher-student and teacher-teacher. “Technology use and integration is a great way for teachers to learn together and promotes community within the school.” Zelda also emphasizes that the collaboration between students through technology is a great way for students to interact with students that they normally would not talk to and allows for an exchange of perspectives which enhances critical thinking.
Hi Sabrina,
Collaboration was also a word that stood out to me in my interview and, like you mentioned, collaboration is extremely beneficial for both the students and the teachers. During my interview, I was made aware that the math department at my school has really gotten on board with the new Bring Your Own Device scheme and that they have worked together diligently to get all their resources in an appropriate online format. Recently, when teaching the same lesson at the same time, but to different groups of grade 11s and from different classrooms, the two classes were actually able to see what each other were doing and helped each other on a tricky problem. I think that this an excellent example of collaboration and, due to the unplanned nature of it, something that would not have been possible without technology.
Thanks for you post,
Kathryn
Hi Kathryn,
So great to hear that your school has gotten on board with BYOD. I know that this is a topic that has been coming up a lot in many schools. Collaboration is crucial in our profession; it enables us to learn from one another and build on our teaching practice and make it better:)
Hi Sabrina,
You mentioned some of the same challenges that my interviewee stated as well. It seems to be a common theme that teachers can’t find the time to learn new technology and because of that they find it intimidating. I’m really struggling with how we overcome this obstacle. In my newest teaching position, my biggest obstacle is finding access to reliable technology. This one is difficult as our district doesn’t seem to have the funding (or chooses not to spend it in this way). I am one of few teachers in our wing that really wants to use technology with my students, so our grade 7 classes are definitely not a priority. I considered talking to my admin about a BYOD program, but sadly over half of my class is living below the poverty line.
What I loved about your interview, is that your principal sees the value in technology and is able to talk about how it empowers both teachers and students and allows them to collaborate.
Thanks for sharing!
Hi Nicole,
Thanks for posting!:)
Reliable technology is a big issue- its constantly shutting down or it pauses in the middle of an important lesson. The list goes on. It is sad that some students do not have access to technology due to socioeconomic facts; equity issues make it difficult and it is not fair that these students do not get an opportunity to use and learn with technology due to poverty.
Hi Sabrina,
Our interviews definitely have some similarities. You mentioned the use of Kurzweil using the text to speech feature and my interviewee also mentioned how beneficial text to speech is for their students and how it can open up opportunities for students to be successful. Collaboration was another keyword that stood out in my interview as well and I think is a very common word when looking through all the interviews. You mention that your admin discusses how collaboration promotes a sense of community and I found this too during my interview. It’s great to see that your admin is on board and values the use of technology! This quote stood out for me, “To really utilize technology to meet the needs of students, there is a huge commitment piece for teachers and this is an immense challenge in itself.” This is very important as technology needs to be used in a purposeful manner and not just be used to keep students busy! Thanks!
Hi Amanda,
Thanks for posting:)
There needs to be a purpose for everything that we do in education and in our classrooms. And technology use is no different. We cannot just throw technology at our students and think we are implementing it in an effective way. There needs to be thought behind it.
Hi Sabrina
I like the fact that your conversation had three themes: empowerment, challenging, and collaboration.
I wonder if teachers that lacked the “…skill-set” had Professional Development would begin to use (more) technology in their classroom?
A good next step might be to ask these teachers that do not use any technology to engage their students — why they do not.
Christopher