Running head: TEACHER TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT NARRATIVE 1

Teacher Technology Assessment Narrative

Lisa A. Flicker

Kennesaw State University

August 2017

Dr. Campbell

June 2017
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This teacher technology assessment was completed on a first year Georgia Studies

teacher at Holcomb Bridge Middle School, Jessica Hernandez. Jessica is young and very much a

part of this new digital age. Being a very early twenty-something, technology is very much

immersed within Jessicas life as well as her friends. Jessica graduated from college the

December before the new school year started and then she worked as a long term sub at a

neighboring county high school for the remainder of the school year. She was a little concerned,

at first, with the age group she would be teaching at Holcomb Bridge Middle School. She knew

it would take time to adjust from the high school mentality of her former students to the middle

school mentality of her new students. Of the five Georgia Studies classes she is teaching this

year, four are on-level classes, three of which are team taught, the last one is an advanced/TAG

(gifted). Jessica is eager to learn new skills to best meet the needs of all of her students. She is

very open to collaboration and being involved in a coaching partnership.

In Jessicas classroom is an Epson projector and each student is given an iPad with Wi-Fi

access to use during the school year. This is the third year for Holcomb Bridge being a 1:1

school. Jessica is pretty comfortable using the projector and has the assistance of one of her team

teachers to assist her each day if she has any questions using that technology tool. There is an

iPad cart that she may check out additional iPads as needed, or if students are new and do not

have for some reason. Jessica also has issued to her a laptop and an iPad. Our media center has 5

group stations that students can access a screen for group projects and collaboration activities.

Jessica and I have already been given the opportunity to work together and strengthen our

relationship this year through our collaboration in the Social Studies PLC we are both members

of. I wanted her to feel safe and comfortable when completing her LoTi and Adopter surveys for
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me as I needed her to be as honest with her answers as possible. I would be using her results, my

observations, and our one-to one discussions to create a plan for our coaching sessions.

Levels of technology Use and Change

Jessicas survey results were about what I had expected to see. She utilizes technology

several times a day to access information or do personal tasks. She is comfortable with it and as

she says, It is a part of everything around her (J. Hernandez, personal communication,

September 22, 2017). With the professional development that she has attended, she is currently

using about 2 strategies with the students now. One is Kahoot and the other is NearPod.

Jessica does believe technology has the ability to influence change but she is neutral

about it in regard to its use in the classroom. I asked her about this when we debriefed after her

taking the surveys. She explained that she loves the idea of technology, but her main frustrations

have been in that it doesnt always work. She cant get certain programs to work, there are

glitches, some classes it will be fine, and then it will just freeze or stop and she wont know what

to do (J. Hernandez, personal communication, September 19, 2017).

Jessica states in her Adopter Survey that she uses technology about once a month to

assess. She would like to utilize technology tools more in order to do this and can see how this

can be more efficient, she just is not aware of how to do so.

Technology Perspective

From an implementation of technology perspective, Jessica is very open to using

technology but wary about the time it takes with planning, as evident by her Technology Adopter

Survey results. She also understands that as a new teacher she does not have all of the answers

and still needs professional development to give her the opportunities to find some new

technology resources she may want to use in her own classes. She states that it only takes her a
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few hours to learn a new technology tool once she is introduced to it. However, a major concern

of hers is that if she chooses to use it, will it actually work with a class or all classes on that

given day. When Jessica and I were in a discussion together, we both laughed at the saying,

technology is wonderful when it works, the key word, when it works (J. Hernandez, personal

communication, September 22, 2017).

Jessica is very much an advocate for technology and knew coming to this school, and

after interviewing here, that Holcomb Bridge Middle was a school very much focused on the

implementation of technology through all disciplines. She understood she needed to be open to

implementing new strategies that utilized technology in her lessons. The principal had explained

to her that we had a fail forward mentality. As long as you tried, you could fail, but you needed

to learn and then use that to apply it to something new (J. Hernandez, personal communication,

September 22, 2017). Jessica wants to be a productive member of the Holcomb Bridge family

and to show the staff that she is able to hold her own. She is willing to learn and become

involved in the school culture. She just feels she needs to know that what she uses is

technologically reliable and a proven technique with students. She is much more comfortable

seeing examples and modelling than just going in blind. Therefore, and for these reasons, I

would categorize her as an early majority because of her specific needs for adoption of

technology and usage.

After reviewing the results of Jessicas surveys, I also found that If I am able to explain to

Jessica that the complexity of the iTunes U technology is not as complicated and much more user

friendly in terms of implementation, than she is more likely to use it. Furthermore, she would

need to be able to observe this ease by watching me model the use through real life lessons using

our common standards (Sahin, 2006). With this in play, it justifies my classification of Jessica as
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an early majority adopter. Jessica is conservative and careful. She wants to see how something is

played out and worked out first before using it herself. She likes research and is definitely not

impulsive.

Technology Training Needs and Coaching

My initial concern when really delving in to the results from her LoTi and Adopter

surveys was that I hoped Jessica was feeling comfortable enough with me to answer honestly

regarding what was currently going on in her classroom and how she felt about technology. I did

not want her to try and please me. I remember taking a Surveying and Polls course in college and

learning that the best polls were done with complete anonymity. When the person being

surveyed could see how you would react or knew the person doing the polling, their first impulse

was to please. I hope this was not the case given the fact she was new to not only me and the

school, but to teaching. Therefore, I also knew we needed to have face-to-face discussions. That

would give me the opportunity to share with her some of my experiences, successes and failures,

and hope she would feel comfortable doing the same.

Learning through our interactions that Jessica needed to understand who I was and where

I was coming from before opening up made complete sense to me. We had to build a relationship

in order for her to feel comfortable trusting and confiding in me. And in order to do that, I had to

make sure I was an active listener and that all other distractions were put aside. I needed to be

present in the moment. Making eye contact and making sure to let her know that I was hearing

what she was saying (Knight, p.62)

Jessica was not familiar with the iTunes U platform and had not utilized iTunes U

courses before nor had she downloaded them for her own personal use. I knew she was a little

concerned about juggling new technologies, new curriculum, and a new career. Therefore, when
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Jessica found out during pre-planning about iTunes U and having to create a course to administer

personalized learning. She was overwhelmed already with all of the new technology, content,

figuring out the inner workings of the 8th grade age group she would soon be teaching, and now

she was being asked to blend this together with personalized learning strategies that we refer to

as Path and Pace and iTunes U. Quite the daunting job.

This overwhelming feeling that had set in was what helped me to decide upon and create

a plan specifically designed for Jessica. Sahin (2006), when discussing Rogers Theory of

Diffusion of Innovations Theory and peoples hesitations to adopt, states that individuals should

be informed about the advantages and disadvantages and made aware of all consequences. That

consequences should be classified as desirable versus undesirable (functional or dysfunctional),

direct versus indirect (immediate result or result of the immediate result), and anticipated versus

unanticipated (recognized and intended or not) (p.1). Therefore, before Jessica is able to make

any decision of adoption on her own in regard to the new technology of iTunes U and what it can

do for her personalized learning classroom, I need to give her the total picture and break it all

down for her. I needed for her to understand the inner workings of what it could do, how it could

look in her classroom, as well as the limitations or bumps that I had even experienced along the

way.

I have devised a plan that would include my meeting with her at least once or twice a

week to set up her iTunes U course. I would share my course with her and allow her access as a

student to see what it looks like from that point of view. I would invite Jessica to come in to

observe my class and to see me modeling a lesson with my students. The lesson would be

utilizing iTunes U with a personalized learning voice and choice activity. We would then meet to

debrief and discuss what she liked, did not like, what she thought she may be able to use, was
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confused about, or may even need further clarification. This is also an awesome way for her to

see how I am incorporating our Georgia Studies content standards in with my iTunes U course

and personalized learning, as she is both new to the course set-up and the standards she is being

asked to teach this year.

Furthermore, Jessica is very interested in learning more technology tools to implement

with her students for everyday lessons and to make them more engaging. She would like to learn

specific tools she may use to assess on a regular basis and that are manageable and easy to use.

Therefore, I decided that since we have our content meetings together during our first planning

periods on Tuesdays, we could meet right after to go over some of these coaching goals that she

would like to master. We can use the plans we have devised and created from our content

meetings to share some specific technology strategies and tools I think would be useful to her.

Jessica can choose which ones sound appealing to her and then we can arrange for her to see me

model the new strategy and then she may try it with her own students. We can debrief the

following week and discuss plusses and deltas and possibly plan to incorporate this new strategy

in with our plans. Jessica could include how she thinks she would like to use this in her own

class, if she chooses to, and how she may want to modify it to work best for her. Formative is an

example of one assessment tool I will introduce to Jessica.

I know that Jessica feels the faculty and staff does not know her well at Holcomb Bridge

Middle School, and she would like for them to know her better. I propose for her to choose one

of the strategies we have discussed and that she is implementing and enjoying using in her own

class to possibly model and teach to the teachers and coaches at her New Teacher Cohort

meetings held once a month. Jessica will share this strategy to support personalized learning with

the new teachers of Holcomb Bridge Middle School. This will enable the participants access to
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that technology as well allow them greater insight in to knowing more about Jessica and what is

important to her.

Jessicas LoTi Technology Use Assessment

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Jessicas Adopter Survey Results

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References

J. Hernandez, personal communication, September, 2017

Knight, J. (2007). Instructional Coaching: A Partnership Approach to Improving Instruction.

Corwin Press.

SAHIN, I. (2006). Detailed review of rogers' diffusion of innovations theory and educational
technology-related studies based on rogers' theory. TOJET : The Turkish Online Journal of
Educational Technology, 5(2)