Technology Interview

For my interview, I met with Ms. Herren, a 2nd grade teacher who teaches at Whitehead Road Elementary. I began the interview by asking her to describe the types of technology she has access to in her classroom. She responded by saying they use technology almost daily. One way is with a program called Sentio: each student has a clicker and are supposed to log in to their particular class, using their ID or lunch number, in order to take their math test. They have a hard copy of the test in front of them, but they answer in with their clickers. Other forms of technology are incorporated into centers. During reading centers, students are allowed to use the computers to play "Ticket to Read." Another option is to listen to a book on tape. In addition, students have access to a little machine that they can slide a card (with a word written on it) into and have the machine read it to them; they are supposed to say the word along with the machine. Ms. Herren also has a personal laptop and has access to the media center where she can check out tape recorders, digital cameras or video cameras. However, the main form of technology she uses is a "technological whiteboard," called a Smartboad. Her classroom does not have a television, VCR or overhead because these technologies have now been replaced by the Smartboard.
Naturally, I asked her to explain more about the Smartboard because I have never heard of or experienced it. Smartboard is a technological whiteboard that looks like a movie screen; it is a big square screen with small areas of whiteboard on each side. It comes with an eraser and markers that allow you to use the Smartboard as a whiteboard though (except the markers are different than regular Expo markers- they show up on the screen without actually marking it). Next, Ms. Herren hooks up her laptop the the Smartboard so anything she does on her laptop is broadcast over the Smartboard for the whole class to see. She has a program, Smartnotebook, that allows her to design individual lesson plans. There are just so many different things you can do! For example, if you are teaching a lesson on time, you can pull up a clock that is actually ticking off the seconds and minutes. Ms. Herren absolutely loves her Smartboard because it is touch screen as well, making it even more interactive for her students. For example, when they had a lesson on money, students came up and pulled coins to different areas to make different dollar amounts. She also uses numerous teacher websites to gather ideas for upcoming lesson plans.
When asked if there were any other technologies she wished she had in her classroom, Ms. Herren replied, "Not really. My Smartboard seems to be able to do almost anything." She thinks it would be too difficult if each 2nd grader had his/her own laptop. However, she did comment that she wished her school gave access to YouTube. Two of her student teachers went out to a river and made a video using their camera. They wanted to upload the video on YouTube and broadcast it over the Smartboard. Unfortunately, they were unable to do this because the website is blocked from the school.
I concluded the interview by asking Ms. Herren a final question: how do your students respond to the technology used in your classroom? As expected, she said her students LOVE it. They love getting to use the computers and love getting to come up and do different things on the Smartboard. She said whenever she asks for volunteers, almost every student has their hand raised.