If you decide to listen to this podcast you will hear from an incredible individual named John Stevens.  John is a math coach in our district and I have worked with him for the past two years to implement many tech pieces for my Integrated 1,2, and 3 classes.  He was a previous teacher for 4 years and has been a coach for the past 5 years.  I believe he was a great candidate to interview because of his passion for technology and his knowledge.

As you listen to the interview, John touched base on several social media pieces available to students and teachers.  He mentioned to avoid using Snapchat in the classroom because of the legality and the content “disappearing” and to embrace Twitter and Instagram as ways for students to connect to you and the content.  He believes students should not be forced to be involved in social media in class but have them available if they want to use them.  One of the things I found great was his thoughts on blogging.  John has his own blog, fishing4tech.com, and he mainly uses this blog, so he can reflect on a lesson and share with others.  He states it is more for himself than necessarily everyone else, but he does share his thoughts for those who it might help.

As I was interviewing John, I really feel I would like to incorporate Twitter into my classroom.  I currently use Twitter as a way to build on professional development but not as a way to connect to my students.  I feel this would be a great way for them to connect to me and the world of math around them.  I would also enjoy incorporating Desmos more into my lessons.  I currently use Desmos for fun activities but do not create my own content too much because of the time.  I would like to use this more to make content more personalized for students and possibly have them create activities we could play in class.

Overall, I feel the interview went well.  Next time, I would like to use better recording equipment, so our volume levels would be the same and John would not sound distant compared to myself.  I think if I interviewed John again, I would also have more specific questions which pertain to some of the various media he uses in his day to day activities.