Interview a Teacher

Stephanie Owen - McKay Elementary School, Portland, OR

1. My favorite tech and web tools in the classroom: the most used one is the ELMO document projector (you can put things under this camera and it displays them on a screen, kind of like an overhead projector but better), it is awesome, I use it everyday, we can display pictures from books and it is the most valuable way for students to share their work. Smart boards would be awesome if our school could afford them. I also think teacher webpages are amazing, its an awesome way to keep parents updated on assignments, students progress and events/activities in the classrooom.

2. Frusterations with Tech: You pretty much always have to have a plan B when you are integrating technology into a lesson plan, because there is always the off chance it will not work, and you don't have the luxury of troubleshooting with 25 kids staring at you, starting to get off task (this happened to me last week when the ELMO would not work).

3. The biggest misconception: That it is a hassle/more work to include it in your lesson plan. Also, I think alot of teachers may not realize that their students may not have access to technology at home (coming from a title 1 (ie: poor) school, I found out most of my kids do not have access to word processing or the internet at home- therefore I try to integrate these into our school day so the students can get some exposure it in our increasingly techno-dependant world.

4. Hurdles: The biggest hurdles teachers face is getting the funding to get updated technology in our classrooms. Right now we have OLD OLD Macintosh computers in our classrooms that sound like airplanes when you turn them on and work very slowly. Another hurdle I would say would be keeping informed on updated technology, this is probably a challenge for older teachers.

5. Biggest success: I enjoy bringing my iPod into the classroom and finding music to correlate with what we are studying, I find it really helps students and myself get excited and motivated about the material.

6. Inspiration: We have a teacher at our school who is our designated "technology person" (it's our librarian) and she is our go-to person for technology ideas, questions and troubleshooting. She always knows resources I can use and gives me ideas for lesson plans.

7. Future: I think schools need to stop fighting and begin to embrace the technology that students already know how to use and are currently using every day (ie: cell phones) and integrate it into their classrooms- personal cell phones are powerful individual computers in our pockets- it would make learning more meaningful for students if they were able to integreate them into lessons- ie: using their cell phone to find an answer in class.