Mrs. A is in her 21st year of teaching. She has spent all of her career at the middle school level in both the French Immersion and English side of schools. Mrs. A noted how she likes to switch things up frequently and so, has taught many different subjects. She is currently in a learning support role, teaching specifically literacy and numeracy skills.
As I continue to look deeper into these questions and read more of my peers findings, I have noticed a couple of trends coming up.
Firstly, teachers are concerned about access. Not all schools are equipped to facilitate one to one technology for each student. Schools encourage students to bring their own device, however this brings up a whole other level of access. Not all families can afford for their children to have their own device. This means some students come to school with a device and some do not. Though this reduces the amount of students who need to borrow a device from the school, it means that these same students don’t have access to a device at home. A number of teachers shared that they really noticed a discrepancy in access to technology during Covid, and these discrepancies continue to persist in today’s classroom.
Next was the idea of more professional development. Many interviewees, including the two that I spoke with, shared their interest in more professional development opportunities surrounding educational technology in the science and math classrooms. Though these opportunities exist, often they are not subject specific or they are opportunities where multiple different technology options are provided and teachers aren’t given the time to really explore and learn how to use them. From the interviewees perspectives, this can act as a barrier as to why technology doesn’t always get integrated in the classroom. So it seems that it isn’t that teachers don’t want to use new technology in their classrooms but they note that they need more support so they feel confident with it’s implementation.