SIXTH THROUGH EIGHTH GRADE

School/Classroom Profile:

School Location: Urban

eMINTS Classroom: No

Grade Level: Sixth through Eighth

Subject Area for Assessment: Cross Curriculum

The teacher I interviewed is the media specialist that has been working at the middle school in the media center for three years now.  Since she has started working in the media center, she has turned the area into a technology center that most schools would be extremely jealous of.  After interviewing this teacher, I gained a greater understanding of what exactly goes into running an extravagant media center such as the one that we have.  

The first question I asked her was, “How do you use technology with your students on a daily basis?”  From this question, her answers were more than fulfilling of the needs for my paper.  On a daily basis, she utilizes her mounted SmartBoards and computers with many different students.  These are used to do things such as presentations and webquests for any content area.  She also runs the dynacom system.  This a system set up in the back of the media center that connects to each teacher’s television.  This system allows teachers to request movies and film clips and only have to turn on their televisions and it will play at the drop of a hat.  This teacher says that this is the most difficult piece of technology that our school uses, but without it, there would be a greater deal of work with renting out televisions, VCRs, etc. 

Another area that she and I discussed was the barriers that come with the use of technology.  This teacher stated, “When everything is down, my world becomes a hurricane of problems.”  This made me realize that so many things run on technology and when just one thing goes wrong, her whole day can become a nightmare.  We also discussed that so many people rely on technology these days; it is hard to get students to realize that it is still important to pick up a classic novel, or even a short chapter book.  

When we talked about how students are affected by the use of technology, we discussed the different areas of their lives that are based around technology.  The fact of the matter is their entire lives are based around it.  From waking up in the morning to an alarm set on their cell phones to instant messaging until wee hours of the morning, students are continually surrounded by technology.  This teacher believes, “it is so sad that they can no longer think on their own.”  It is a real shame that teachers are afraid to explore more technology in their classrooms.  

As far technology goes in my classroom, I feel that this teacher is an amazing asset to me.  I have every opportunity to work with her and implement more technology inside my classroom.  While working with her, I plan on using a few of her favorite activities with my classroom.  These things include webquests, and I-safe which is showing my student how to research using the internet in a safe way.  I hope to overcome my own fear of using technology in my classroom, and I believe that using this teacher as a resource will be the best way to overcome that fear.