For my first podcast, I chose to interview my colleague Marcia Deeny. Marcia is a 3rd grade teacher at Albert Schweitzer Elementary School in Neshaminy School District. She is a veteran teacher who just completed teaching her 25th school year. When I started teaching at Albert Schweitzer 13 years ago Marcia was assigned to be my mentor. Through the mentor-ship program at Neshaminy she met with me on a weekly basis to see how things were going, offer advice, or just listen to things I wanted to tell her. Marcia is a teacher who is highly regarded and loved by her colleagues, she is also highly sought after by the students at Schweitzer. She is dedicated, compassionate, and inspiring. One of the things I admire the most about Marcia is her ability to connect with students.
Why Marcia?
About 6 years ago I became the technology advocate in our building and one of my responsibilities is to train staff on new technology that the district would like implemented. When we began our training many years ago Marcia spoke to me afterward and said “Kym, I don’t know if I can do this. I just don’t understand computers.” This is exactly why I wanted to interview Marcia today. She, like so many other teachers out there, was hesitant with technology because it was unfamiliar. It was important for me to take the time to interview Marcia because she represents the majority of our teaching staff at Albert Schweitzer, which made her the perfect candidate! Her honesty about technology and how she has grown over the years was refreshing and I truly appreciate her candor. What I am so thrilled to share with you today is her journey learning Web 2.0 technologies and embedding them into her lessons.
Here are the questions that I asked Marcia in our podcast.
- Begin by telling me a bit about your journey learning about technology.
- What do you see as the role of social media and Web 2.0 tools for learning and teaching?
- What tools are you using in your classroom?
- What have you learned as a result of working with these tools?
- What suggestions would you have for someone who is looking to use social media for teaching, learning, or professional development?
I really enjoyed speaking with Marcia and hearing her thoughts on the use of Web 2.0 tools in our school. I was interested in her opinion because Marcia represents a large group of veteran teachers who have been teaching for 20 + years. She brought up an excellent point that her education many years ago did not include technology at all. Now that she is teaching 21st century learners using Web 2.0 tools; she does this without any formal training. Our district does very little in regards to training staff and many may feel uncomfortable pursuing this alone. Our school is very lucky to have teachers like Marcia who are willing to recognize that they need to improve their skills in technology in order to effectively teach today’s learners. I can relate with that feeling completing this very podcast. I have never done this before and definitely was not looking forward to it. It felt a little awkward at first; I cringe when I hear the beginning because I could not figure out how to record and ended up recording myself reading the directions! I listened to the podcast titled Teacher Preparation and Technology in which the author states several facts from various studies about teacher and student use of technology in and out of the classroom both professionally and personally. I was surprised to find that for many states it is a requirement for teachers to be competent in technology and that it should be a part of their formal education in order for them to be effective educators. When I heard this I immediately connected to Marcia and her story of about taking a journey to learn how to use Web 2.0 tools without formal training. It raises for me very interesting and yet concerning questions. If teachers who are seeking degrees in education need to have some sort of technology competency then what can be done to train experienced teachers who never received formal training as part of their education? Also, who’s responsibility is it to ensure that training occurs, the teachers or the schools in which they teach?