Individual Teacher Technology Use Assessment

Larry Singleton
I will be coaching a World History Teacher with 12 years of experience,
and a reputation as a solid, well liked teacher. His name is Whitt Jones; hes
married with two small children; coaches boys JV Basketball, and came to our
school from another Fayette county School (the rival we love to hate) this
year.
The LoTi survey that our PLC developed, gives Whitt a score of 2.92 on
our 1 5 scale. As a side note, the average score for four of us in the PLC
who took this survey was 4.15. Mr. Jones has a LAN connected computer
with a projector and a screen in his classroom. He has occasional access to a
computer lab for his classes as well as access to a cart of Chromebooks.
Students are allowed to use their smart phones or tablets on Wi-Fi if desired
and approved by Whitt. The areas where the survey responses by Mr. Jones
indicate a need for improvement are: 1) solving technical problems with
resources, 2) being comfortable using technology in the classroom, 3)
curriculum demands and scheduling constraints that prevent him from using
technology resources, 4) achieving maximum use of technologies in his
classroom, 5) assigning web based projects that require complex thinking
strategies, 6) PD opportunities that will meet his need for more engaging
and relevant experiences for his students, 7) PD that will help him implement
innovations in instructional design and learning technologies, 8) instructional
materials that engage students in personally relevant inquiry and problem
solving, and 9) merging technology resources with relevant and challenging,
student directed learning experiences.
Based on Whitts responses to the questions I ask him from the
Adopter Level Survey created by our PLC, he fits into the Early Majority
category. Whitt is interested in learning to use the technology tools that hes
heard about that other teachers are using with success. He is aware of the
newly acquired Chrome book cart for his department, and has expressed a
desire to find a good application to use them in his class. He considers
himself to be tech savvy, and is not fearful of struggling to learn something
new. One of the things that Whitt struggles with is finding the time to learn
new things. At the same time he confesses this he acknowledges an
understanding that new technologies could actually save him time by
making him more efficient. Because of this, he welcomes help and
encouragement in trying new things.

I presented Whit with the list of technology categories that I am most

experienced with and ask him to look it over and check off those that he
would be most interested in pursuing. I also advised him of my willingness to
learn new things from him, and if there is an area he wants to explore that
Im not proficient in, I will gladly jump in and learn it with him. We discussed
and agreed that we would meet at least once a week to talk about potential
tech tools that might fit into upcoming lesson plans, and that we would seek
to try as many new things that we is comfortable with. As we zero in on a
particular technology tool that Whitt believes will be beneficial, we will spend
our shared planning period together to develop the details and
implementation strategy.
My goal is for successful implementation of two to four different tools
that Whitt will be comfortable with, and plan to use on a continuing basis.