Francis_u02a1 Colleague Interview

For this assignment, I chose to interview Kristin Ezzell, a history teacher at my school. She has about the same amount of experience teaching as I do, and she had very similar answers to the assigned questions as I did.

Ms. Ezzell said that the criteria she uses to decide which online tools to use with her students basically cover the three following ideas: Is it user-friendly? Does it teach the necessary material in a variety of ways/does it offer differentiated instruction? Does it collate data and/or self-grade and allow for feedback to both students and teachers.

One of the tools she has been using for the past year is Google Forms for weekly assessments. Because our school has limited technological resources available, she had to receive special permission to sign up for the only Chromebook cart our school has every Friday of the year. The stipulation was that she could have the cart of Chromebooks for her students during 1st, 2nd, and 4th period, every Friday, but teachers were aware that they could call her to ask if she needed them every week, just in case she wasn't using them. For what she told me, I think there were some teachers who weren't happy that she had the only available Chrome-cart every Friday, and I can really understand that. But I really think that this is a prime example of how teachers can utilize technology that's available, but also how schools really need to provide the necessary tools for their teachers to use.

When I asked her what advice she would give to other teachers trying to replicate the same procedure, she said that she would also advise them to ask permission from the technological rep in the school as well as administration. She also advised speaking with the Instructional Tech to see if it would be possible to implement BYOD for one day per week. She mentioned that allowing students to use their own devices would ease tensions among staff and free up the limited technology our school has for other students to use.

I agree with Ms. Ezzell that the technology should be able to give feedback and data, and hopefully, that it could alleviate some grading from the teacher. As one of the teachers who uses the only chromebook cart our school has, I think it might have been better if she had rotated her use of computer labs and the chromebook cart based on how many students she has in her classroom.