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Individual Teacher Technology Assessment

Individual Teacher Technology Assessment

Silvia Carolina Parker

PL & Technology Innovation ITEC7460

Kennesaw State University

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Individual Teacher Technology Assessment

Ms. Serrato is currently the health specials teacher at Minor Elementary School. She

teaches health to students in grades kindergarten to fifth grade. Ms. Serrato recently graduated

from Georgia Gwinnett College and started her teaching career at Minor Elementary in January,

2017. She is eager to learn and is very focused on her career.

Ms. Serrato was asked to complete two surveys in order to analyze her views about

technology in the classroom. She was given a LoTi survey and an adopter survey. The

technology resources in Ms. Serrato’s classroom include a Mimio board, eight laptop computers,

five Kindle tablets, a ladybug camera, a teacher laptop computer, a DVD/VCR player, and an

overhead projector. Mrs. Serrato also has access to a computer lab once a week.

Analysis of Levels of Engagement and Change Theory

In the LoTi survey, Ms. Serrato reported she uses technology in her classroom every day.

She has used several productivity tools in her classroom such as Kahoot, interactive websites

such as Brainpop, and games such as Jeopardy. She also uses her Mimio board and instructional

camera (ladybug) regularly in her lessons. Most of the time, Ms. Serrato uses slides or

presentation programs such as Power Point to teach her lessons.

While Ms. Serrato was completing her student teaching, she used productivity tools such

as the Google suite to have fourth grade students create a survey to analyze data about the

Revolutionary war. In third grade, she had students create slides for a pollution project. She

states that in both projects, students were highly engaged and motivated. However, in her current

position, as the health teacher, Ms. Serrato has not yet completed any projects using technology.

Ms. Serrato believes math and science are great subjects to incorporate technology

because there are also more technology resources available for those subjects. She also believes
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Individual Teacher Technology Assessment

that “a lot of students have a hard time learning in these subjects, so adding a little bit of

technology will help them stay focused.” (C. Serrato, personal communication, March, 2017).

Ms. Serrato definitely sees technology as a tool to improve student learning and to keep students

engaged.

Based on the LoTi Sniff Test (2007), Ms. Serrato’s lessons and experiences with

technology are on a LoTi level three or below. The way in which she uses technology is mostly

to present information, but her students do not get to directly interact with the technology. The

occasions when students do manipulate technology consist on them playing a review game,

sorting things into categories, or watching learning videos. These activities do not require high

order thinking; therefore, the LoTi level is not very high.

In the adopter survey, Ms. Serrato stated that she falls in between when it comes to

integrating technology in her classroom. Ms. Serrato prefers to try resources by herself before

presenting them to the students. She does this to avoid failure and time loss. She also stated that

she wants to see how effective others are with resources before trying them out. According to

Orr (2003), “early adopters use the data provided by the innovators’ implementation and

confirmation of the innovation to make their own adoption decisions.” Ms. Serrato’s responses

on the adopter survey reflect the fact that she falls into the category of an early adopter/early

majority level. Even though she is technologically knowledgeable, and has seen the benefits of

technology integration, she does not feel confident to implement technology through a

constructive learning approach in her classroom.

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Individual Teacher Technology Assessment

Technology Perception

Ms. Serrato believes the use of technology in the classroom is important, but she also

stated her concerns when using it. When discussing the benefits of technology, she stated that

“the upper grades benefit from using technology but there is no time.” (C. Serrato, Personal

Communication, March 2017). Time constrain is something that Ms. Serrato sees as an

impediment for using technology. She believes that the large amount of content that needs to be

taught does not allow waste of time which is why she believes technology activities must be

carefully planned and must be purposeful and beneficial to students.

When it comes to project based learning, Ms. Serrato also reported that before having

students create a project, “you have to teach them first; especially if it is the first time students

use the technology.” (C. Serrato, personal communication, March, 2017). Ms. Serrato thinks that

students’ lack of technology exposure and practice also limit her use of technology in the

classroom since this could cause distraction and behavior issues.

Ms. Serrato also stated certain topics might not be conducive to technology, and that they

can be covered by using a textbook or other teaching method such as lectures. She stated that,

“writing might not be a subject that is conducive to technology usage because it would take too

much time for the students to do it on a computer (typing), so in that case technology would be

mainly used by the teacher to model or to display student work.” (C. Serrato, personal

communication, March, 2017). This response from Ms. Serrato leads to the ever existing struggle

she seems to have with time and how to best manage it.
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Individual Teacher Technology Assessment

Technology Training Model and Coaching Needs

Ms. Serrato stated that the best type of coaching for her would be a combination of one

on one and small workshop coaching models. She would also prefer a slower paced staff

development that is based on her learning needs. Ms. Serrato would also enjoy the opportunity to

work in a small group setting in order to share ideas with other colleagues.

Ms. Serrato believes the areas she would like more assistance with would be

differentiation and PBL. She finds it hard to group students effectively, and she would also like

to know how to help students of different academic levels effectively. She wants all students to

be engaged and to work equally while completing projects. Ms. Serrato also wants to feel

confident before using technology with the students to avoid management and behavior issues

and time loss.

Based on the responses given by Ms. Serrato, I believe the best coaching model for her

would be the peer method. I particularly like this model because it encourages collaboration

between coach and collaborating teacher. Beglau, Hare, Foltos, Gann, James, Jobe, Knight, and

Smith (2011) outline five stages for the peer coaching method which are to asses, set goals,

prepare, implement activities, and analyze and debrief. What I like the most about this structure

is the fact that it allows for constant revision and feedback. My first steps in working with Ms.

Serrato would be to come up with an action plan and a short term goal for technology

implementation in her classroom. One of the things I would like to suggest to Ms. Serrato is to

design and model small projects that would require the use of technology. For instance, one of

the standards Ms. Serrato needs to teach this quarter is related to drug usage and its effects in the

body. I would design and teach a project in which students will have to research the effects of

drugs in the body and then create a public service announcement, or other product, to inform
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Individual Teacher Technology Assessment

peers about the information found. For this project, students would reach out to experts such as

doctors or other medical personnel to gather information about the topic. Once research is

gathered, students will use productivity tools or other type of technology resource to present their

information. Ms. Serrato will observe the process and will take notes while I model the lessons

for her. Next, she will replicate the same project with another class, and we will compare our

experiences. In consecutive coaching sessions, Ms. Serrato will design a new original project in

which technology will be incorporated.

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Individual Teacher Technology Assessment

References

Beglau, M., Hare, J. C., Foltos, L., Gann, K., James, J., Jobe, H & Knight J. & Smith B. (2011).

Technology, coaching, and community. In ISTE, An ISTE White Paper, Special Conference

Release.

C. Serrato, personal communication, March 2017

LoTi Sniff Test. (n.d.). Retrieved March 1, 2017, from

https://www.softchalkcloud.com/lesson/files/flnopdWRZXhStJ/LoTiSniffTest.pdf

Rogers, E. (1995.). Diffusion of Innovations (G. Orr, Ed. 2003). Retrieved March 1, 2017, from

http://web.stanford.edu/class/symbsys205/Diffusion%20of%20Innovations.htm