Stephen Atchison

Individual Teacher Technology Use Assessment

ITEC 7460
Dr. Cuby-Richardson
October 12th, 2014

Assessments:

Here at Simpson Middle School there are several teachers who are
technology pros and have a large repertoire of technology tools, so I had a hard
time finding a teacher that would truly need the amount of help that I wanted to
give and in order to assess improvement. Alas, I did find a teacher who was not
comfortable with technology but was willing to learn and explore. Mrs. C is a sixth
grade Social Studies teacher who has a hard time with technology and is has little
patience with it. After completing the surveys, I would say that Mrs. C is somewhere
between level 1 of LoTi and level 2. Level one being awareness where the LoTi
Frame work states, The instructional focus is exclusively direct instruction and
student learning focuses are on lower levels of cognitive processing (LoTi
Framework 2011) and level 2 is where exploration takes place. I would say that she
is low on level 2 since the Framework states that it is the student who uses the
technology. Besides a PowerPoint presentation, her students do not use technology
in her classroom. I feel like in a middle school setting, and at a school where there is
so much technology provided, I feel that she should be at level 3, and that is our
goal to get to soon. Yes, she uses PowerPoints, and can search online for already
made Prezis. Also yes, students are creating power points and are starting to
EXPLORE creating Prezis, however; I feel that there is much to be learned to get the
students engaged in the technology and for her to find technology tools that she
can use and better her teaching as well. She is very willing to learn this, she
mentions that patience is important and based on the assessments, and I can why
she would say this.
Based on the second assessment given (the Adopter survey) she scored Late
Adopter (Orr 2003). Her score is mainly due to her comfortably factor and that she
is one that needs to observe several times with a new technology before she can

even begin to understand it. She is a quick learner but not always with technology.
Her score tells me that she is scared to learn new technology, but that it is part of
her background of being a veteran teacher who did not need to use technology in
the past to keep her students engaged and to keep up with the other teachers and
lessons that are being created in the other classrooms. She is easy to work with and
even though she is scared of learning new technology, she is ready to learn and
with time and patience I think we can add tools to her technology tool box and
having her students completing lessons with a variety of technology.
Interview:
In our one on one interview, I learned that Mrs. C has been teaching for
sixteen years. Of those sixteen years, our first year together (four years ago) was
her first year out of the special education classroom where she was a co-teacher in
many subject areas. In those many years being a special education teacher, she did
not use much technology and since she very rarely had her own class. She is still
new with creating lesson plans in general. Now that she is a general education
teacher, she is becoming familiar with what is expected at a school that is thriving
with technology which she stated can me very stressful and intimidating. However,
with the four years that I have known Mrs. C (our first year we planned together
closely since we taught the same subject) I know that she is eager and wanting to
learn new technology. She just needs to someone to be patient and guide her while
eliminating that fear of learning something that is unfamiliar to her.
Mrs. C teaches five periods of Social Studies a day. Three of those periods are
Advance Content classes and the other two are co-taught classes with a total of
fourteen students who have accommodations due to IEPS or 504 plans. Her class

average ratio is 33. Her largest being a class of 35 and that is one of the co-taught
classes and she states is her most difficult class to get engaged into the lesson. I
teach on the same pod as Mrs. C and teach the same children and I know the group
of students very well. In my classroom right now they are creating a website on
their novels as a Tell All website and they are engaged, so our goals is to bring
technology to those students to draw their interest into the Social Studies classroom
as well. In her classroom, Mrs. C spoke of using her Smart board and has explored
tools for it, but was honest to say that she rarely ever uses them and mainly uses
her Smart board for slide shows for note taking and videos; Not engaging enough.
She also uses her document camera and I Response kit (a kit for assessments that
we are required to use at least 3-4 times a semester) in the classroom. The
document station also has a screencast element that she has been afraid to use, so
she stated in our interview that was one of the first tools that she wanted to learn
more about since Flip classrooms are huge at Simpson Middle School and this could
be a great tool for creating those.
Even though she is scared of technology, she is a kind and great teacher who
is open to learning with the right coaching and observations. She feels that she
would like to know her coach and feel that having background information on both
ends is important in order to provide the most help and to understand what is
needed and expected in the classroom. Mrs. C, again, is not familiar with a lot of
technology forms, devices, and tools, but she is a fast learning and is eager to
become the student and is over all a colleague that everyone likes working with and
respects the work that she does. Her coach will be impressed by the work that she
does and I know that she will be one who is not afraid to ask for help even if its
something that has been explained to her. She wants to be successful.

Needs:
As everything is getting prepared for Mrs. C and her coach, she is excited to
have the partnership approach which allows her to as Jim Knight (2007) states a
voice and a choice throughout the process of the coaching sessions. The coaching
sessions will have data collected through my coaching journals which will also be a
great transcript for her to use to remind what the session is consisting of and what
her tasks are. Her first goal is to learn how to make a WebQuest and focus on this
one tool first since she thinks this will be a great tool to start her next unit in Social
Studies. The coach will model the lesson, show examples (including a few that I
have created), plan for each session, and take it one step at a time. There will also
be an observation section and a reflection time so that Mrs. C can reflect on her use
and her time on creating this tool. The first step is learning how to navigate through
Weebly (where she will be creating the WebQuest). In the end of these sessions,
Mrs. C will know how to use Weebly, create her on WebQuest and feel that she is
creating higher level and engaging lessons for her students.

References:
Knight, J. (2007). In Instructional coaching: A partnership approach to improving
instruction (pp. 37-51). Thousand Oaks, CA: NSDC.
LoTi Framework. (2013). LoTi Framework. Retrieved October 09, 2014, from
http://loticonnection.cachefly.net/global_documents/LoTi_Framework_Sniff_Test.pdf
Orr, G. (2003). Diffusion of innovations by Everett Rogers, (1995). Diffusion of
Innovations, by
Everett Rogers (1995). Retrieved October 10, 2014, from
http://www.stanford.edu/class/symbsys205/Diffusion%20of%20Innovations.htm

Surveys:
LoTi Questionnaire
1.
Topic

2. I frequently use technology in my

classroom, beyond just the smart
board, where student learning is
enhanced and challenged.
3. I am comfortable using technology to
create documents, spreadsheets,
tables and graphs, etc. (i.e. Word,
Excel, power point)
4. When I use technology for a lesson, I
know I have someone to go to if there
are any issues.

1=
Strong
ly
Disagr
ee

2=
Disagr
ee

3=
Agree

4=
Strongly
Agree

5. I frequently use technology to vary my

assessments and have students create
a document, presentation, etc. using
technology.
6. I frequently use technology to
differentiate my instruction and
provide students with choices.
7. I have a wide variety of technological
devices I can use in my classroom, and
I am well educated about them.
8. I frequently access and utilize my
school database (Infinite Campus) to
provide and obtain necessary
information (grades, student and
parent info, etc.)
9. I frequently access and utilize
ITSLearning to provide and obtain
necessary information (Planner,
reminders, emails, resources, etc.)
10.I do not use technology that often
because I feel it is not that reliable and
causes more interference with my
lessons than assistance.
11.I attend technology professional
development meetings, even those
that are not mandatory.

Atchison 9

Adopter Survey
In general, how comfortable do you feel using computers in
your personal life
1=Very uncomfortable, 2=Somewhat uncomfortable, 3=Neither
comfortable nor uncomfortable,4= Somewhat comfortable, 5=Very
comfortable
1

In general, how comfortable do you feel using email in your

personal life?
1=Very uncomfortable, 2=Somewhat uncomfortable, 3=Neither
comfortable nor uncomfortable,4= Somewhat comfortable, 5=Very
comfortable
1

In general, how comfortable do you feel using smart phones in

your personal life?
1=Very uncomfortable, 2=Somewhat uncomfortable, 3=Neither
comfortable nor uncomfortable,4= Somewhat comfortable, 5=Very
comfortable
1

In general, how comfortable do you feeling using tablets in

your personal life?
1=Very uncomfortable, 2=Somewhat uncomfortable, 3=Neither
comfortable nor uncomfortable,4= Somewhat comfortable, 5=Very
comfortable
1

In general, how comfortable do you feel using apps in your

personal life?

Atchison 10

1=Very uncomfortable, 2=Somewhat uncomfortable, 3=Neither

comfortable nor uncomfortable,4= Somewhat comfortable, 5=Very
comfortable
1

Which of these social networking sites do you use if any?

o
Facebook
o

Twitter

Instagram

LinkedIn

None

Other:

In general, how comfortable do you feel using computers in

your classroom or professionally?
1=Very uncomfortable, 2=Somewhat uncomfortable, 3=Neither
comfortable nor uncomfortable,4= Somewhat comfortable, 5=Very
comfortable
1

In general, how comfortable do you feel using computers in

your classroom or professionally?
1=Very uncomfortable, 2=Somewhat uncomfortable, 3=Neither
comfortable nor uncomfortable,4= Somewhat comfortable, 5=Very
comfortable
1

In general, how comfortable do you feel using email in your

classroom or professionally?

Atchison 11

1=Very uncomfortable, 2=Somewhat uncomfortable, 3=Neither

comfortable nor uncomfortable,4= Somewhat comfortable, 5=Very
comfortable
1

In general, how comfortable do you feel using tablets in your

classroom or professionally?
1=Very uncomfortable, 2=Somewhat uncomfortable, 3=Neither
comfortable nor uncomfortable,4= Somewhat comfortable, 5=Very
comfortable
1

In general, how comfortable do you feel using smart phones in

your classroom or professionally?
1=Very uncomfortable, 2=Somewhat uncomfortable, 3=Neither
comfortable nor uncomfortable,4= Somewhat comfortable, 5=Very
comfortable
1

In general, how comfortable do you feel using apps in your

classroom or professionally?
1=Very uncomfortable, 2=Somewhat uncomfortable, 3=Neither
comfortable nor uncomfortable,4= Somewhat comfortable, 5=Very
comfortable
1

I usually try new products before other people do.

4=Strongly agree, 3=Agree, 2=Disagree, 1=Strongly disagree
1

I often try new teaching methods because I like variety and

often get bored with the same old thing.
4=Strongly agree, 3=Agree, 2=Disagree, 1=Strongly disagree

Atchison 12

When I shop I look for what is new.

4=Strongly agree, 3=Agree, 2=Disagree, 1=Strongly disagree
1

I like to tell others about new brands or new technology

4=Strongly agree, 3=Agree, 2=Disagree, 1=Strongly disagree
1

I like to be the first among my family, friends and colleagues to

try something new.
4=Strongly agree, 3=Agree, 2=Disagree, 1=Strongly disagree
1