Running head: INDIVIDUAL TEACHER TECHNOLGY ASSESSMENT 1

Individual Teacher Technology Assessment

Christopher W. Cooper

Kennesaw State University

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Ms. Bortles, a special education World History teacher at Dacula High School, was asked

to complete a technology questionnaire. The purpose of the questionnaire was to determine Ms.

Bortles level of comfort with using technology in her classroom and her beliefs of adopting new

forms of innovations for classroom use. Ms. Bortles is a first year teacher and is teaching

resource World History and serves as the special education team teacher in three co-taught World

History classes. Ms. Bortles has five Google Chromebooks in her two resource classes, which

average 10 students. She also had 18 Google Chromebooks in her three co-taught classes, which

average 33 students per class. Each class also has access to LCD projectors, eleven computer

labs and three mobile labs, which she can sign her classes up for. Dacula High School also

allows students to bring their own devices, with many students having personal smart phones

that they use in class.

Levels of Technology Use and Change

In the questionnaire completed by Ms. Bortles, she confirmed that she is comfortable

with using many different forms of technology. Basic forms of technology that she uses daily

include Amazon Prime, Direct T.V. with DVR, various forms of social media, an Apple I-phone,

tablet and other basic forms of technology. Ms. Bortles also acknowledge in the survey that she

uses classroom assessment applications such as Quizizz and Google Forms. When I asked her

about her level of comfort using technology, she stated, “I am very comfortable using technology

in my daily life, I am just not sure how to best incorporate technology into my classroom for

daily use” (W. Cooper, personal communication, October, 2017). When asked how many times

she uses technology in her classroom each week, she stated that she uses technology three to four

times per week. She went on to say that typically it is used for practice and review. She often
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uses Quizizz to assess students’ knowledge after she teaches a concept, but does not really use

the data that it provides her.

In the survey, Ms. Bortles was asked which statement best described her when it comes to

technology use. She stated that she typically uses technology when the most people she knows

does. She mentioned that most of the technology that she uses in the classroom, she sees her

collaborative teacher use in their team taught class first. When I asked how she would like to see

technology used in her classroom, she stated, “I would like to use technology to engage my

students with student centered activities, differentiated activities and be able to use as a

successful assessment tool” (W. Cooper, personal communication, October, 2017). She also

made it clear that she would like to use tools like Quizizz to assess the data that it provides to

plan instruction that meets the needs of her students. She feels that these are being able to do

these things will allow her to meet Dacula High Schools goals for technology use.

The second half of the survey that Ms. Bortles completed was designed to determine how

she would handle change and how she feels about new innovations. Ms. Bortles selected that

she would be cautious in her approach toward new innovation. On a scale of One to five, with 5

being completely describes herself, Ms. Bortles rated herself at a two for the statement that said,

“I want to be the first to try innovation. She also rated herself at a two for the statement on the

survey that said, “I adopt innovations and influence others to do so.” Ms. Bortles did express on

the survey that she was not resistant to change and does not need to be convinced of the

advantages of innovations by others. She did mention that she likes to see new innovations

models before she uses them. The last question in the survey asked, “Why don’t you experiment

with new tools and technologies more often? Ms. Bortles responded that she does not feel real

confident in her ability to do it. Considering that Ms. Bortles does not resist change and does not
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need to be convinced of the advantages of change by others, I would consider Ms. Bortles as an

Early Majority when it comes to adopting new ideas. She mentioned that she does like to see

now innovations modeled before using them, so I feel that she would feel comfortable adopting

new innovations once she saw leaders using them.

Technology Perspective

Ms. Bortles expressed that she believes that instructional technology can be greatly assist

her in creating student centered learning, differentiated instruction and help her assess her

students for mastery, she has not completely bought into using technology to transform her

classroom. The main reason she has not used more technology in the classroom is due to her

lack of experience as a classroom teacher. She is hesitant to try new activities due to the fear that

it will not be successful. She is also fearful that her resource students will not be able to make

appropriate decisions when using technology in the classroom. Ms. Bortles has mentioned that

she likes to see activities modeled before using them in her own classroom. She feels that she

will greatly benefit from training on how to incorporate instructional technology into her lessons

and how to use data that she receives to plan her lessons. She mentioned that meeting the needs

of each student was important to her but she is not always sure how she can differentiate her

lessons to meet the needs of each student.

Technology Training Needs and Coaching

Throughout our conversation, Mr. Bortles expressed that her greatest need was using

technology in her classroom to meet the various needs of her students. With that in mind, we

will start by looking at tools that she can use in her classroom to formatively asses her students.

The tools that we focus on will provide her data that she can use to differentiate her instruction

based on her student’s needs. As she becomes more comfortable with these tools we will
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progress to differentiating instruction through the use of technology. The plan is to provide her

with one-on-on coaching and having her conduct peer observations within our school. With this

plan in mind, I feel that it will be best to use the peer coaching model to carry out our

collaboration. This will allow us to work together and she can see me, along with other teachers

model the activity before she carries them out in her class.

The plan calls for us to meet on Monday and Wednesday during our 7th period planning.

We will look at tools such as Quizizz, Schoolnet, Kahoot, and other assessment tools that will

allow her to use the data that she gains to differentiate to meet the needs of each student. From

there we will look at creating tiered lessons for her to engage students in the classroom.

Examples of applications that will be used will be Quizlet, Safari Montage and various other

tools for remediation and Popplet, Storyboard and others for extension. Since Ms. Bortles does

not have devices for one to one use, we will work on creating plans that allow half her students

to have a device while the other half are doing other activities. Ms. Bortles will observe me

conducting similar lessons in my class before carrying them out in her own class. We will

conduct follow-up sessions after she completes each lesson. The overall goal will be to continue

this process until she is comfortable using technology to engage her students on a daily basis.
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References

Beglau, M., Hare, J. C., Foltos, L., Gann, K., James, J., Jobe, H., ... & Smith, B. (2011).

Technology, coaching, and community. In ISTE, An ISTE White Paper, Special

Release.

C. Cooper, personal communication, October 4th, 2017

Orr, G. (2003, March 18). [Review of the book Diffusion of Innovation]. Retrieved from

https://web.stanford.edu/class/symbsys205/Diffusion%20of%20Innovations.html
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