Interactivity #5

I chose to interview a Spanish teacher from a charter school in the district of Newark. She teaches Spanish II, III and IV at high school level. I got the chance to do the interview after school and in person. I had observed her several times during the semester and her lessons were well rounded.  I had observed this teacher use PowerPoint to introduce new vocabulary and assign students small research projects in Spanish so it surprised me very much when Mrs. X stated that she was not too familiar with NETS for Students or for Teachers. She had heard them being mentioned before, of course, but could not give me a straight definition or description of what exactly it was.

She stated that the integrations of technology in her daily lessons came from the standards for World Languages. I found this response very strange because I had not seen many integrations of technology embedded in the standards. For my methods course at MSU I had to work very closely with the standards and I felt comfortably familiar with them. I did a little research and found few standards deal with technology and the one that do are very broad and superficial. In the intermediate low level, for example, which coincides with her Spanish III class, only the following standard make any reference to technology: 7.1.IL.B.1: Use digital tools to participate in short conversations and to exchange information related to targeted themes and 7.1.IL.C.1: Use knowledge about cultural products and cultural practices to create a multimedia-rich presentation on targeted themes to be shared virtually with a target language audience.

She mentioned her supervisors were starting to request that the teachers use technology available in the building for her lessons. She had to hand in her lessons for approval in advance to her supervisor, so they were actively being looked at for this. I think she might have been a little confused as far as the requirements of the standards themselves and NETS for students and teachers.

She also stated that at the beginning of the year they had a brief workshop on the technological resources available on the school. This of course does not include any practical application of those resources to different subject areas. They simply reminded all teachers of what they have at their disposition, for example, computer labs, televisions, projectors, etc.

I think at this point the transition in her particular school is coming down from the administration down and teachers may not be completely clear about their role in the transition. She is integrating technology in her classroom but she is receiving no support or feedback. After our brief interview I provided her with the websites for NETS for Students and Teachers so that she could educate herself a little more in the matter. She thanked me and promised she would look them over. I think she was a bit surprised by my questions but tried to answer as best as she could. As a future educator, I think it is very important that all educators realize the importance of NETS, its purpose and role in their curriculum. They foster critical thinking and creativity as well as prepare students for challenges they may encounter in the real world. The best way to accomplish this is to talk about it! Seasoned and new teachers as well as administrators need to have discussions about the role that technology has in their classroom and any potential room for improvement.


Here is the new version of my spreadsheet