An Interview with an Indiana Teacher- Similarities Between the Indiana State Plan and Eastern Jr./Sr. High School Plan for Technology

I interviewed Jill Howell, a former 7^th grade math teacher who had some information she wanted to share about policies and technology at the school where she taught 7^th grade students. She taught at Eastern Junior/Senior High School in Greentown, Indiana. Eastern Junior/Senior High School has approximately 700 students. The school contains grades 7-12. It is also located in a rural area. She taught for 16 years at Eastern Junior/Senior High School and subbed for 3 years prior to teaching as a math teacher. She retired after the 2011-2012 school year. Even though she is retired, she still had many things to say about policies and how technology was incorporated everyday at her school. 

           

Jill mentioned that her school had a technology plan. Her school had a state plan as well as a local plan. Since Eastern Junior/Senior High School has a technology plan, it has been used since she started teaching. It has made changes and it has become more advanced. Jill stated, “When I started subbing in the early 80’s we had reel to reel projectors, TV’s, and an intercom system. (Kokomo Center Schools) When I started teaching in the mid 90’s we had overhead projectors and TV’s with VHS tapes. As time went on, the first technology add was for communications with the office- phones in the classroom, walkie-talkies, teacher computers (email). We had a grant for Junior High teachers to have 3 student computers in each classroom (≈ 2000). Our school was always very progressive when it came to technology. By 2010 all our English classrooms had ipad carts and in 2013 K-8 all had take home ipads” (written interview, March 10, 2013).

Since technology is ever changing, Eastern Junior/Senior High School used to have technology available throughout the school in other locations, but now technology is provided in many teachers’ classrooms. The Indiana State Policies provide technological aspects of what types of technology can be utilized in classrooms (What Instructional Technologies, 2013). Jill stated how technology used to be throughout the school. She said, “Like we would have so many VCRs or LCD Projectors per building that could be checked out on a daily basis. Over the last 4 years all classrooms have been equipped with Smart Boards (elementary) or Interactive White Boards (Jr high/high school). With the addition of White Boards, laptops for the teachers, ipads/netbooks K-12, and wifi campus wide, there is no need to go elsewhere unless students need the computer lab to print papers” (written interview, March 10, 2013).

As I can see, Eastern Junior/Senior High School has many similarities in their technology plan compared to the Indiana State Plan. Indiana wants to engage students by showing them the benefits of technology. I can see that Indiana wants all of the schools in this state to have technology available to the students. Hopefully in a few years, all schools can have technology available in every classroom in the state of Indiana just like Eastern Junior/Senior High School.

Howell, Jill. (2013, March 10). Written interview.

 

 (2013). What instructional technologies are being used in Indiana schools?. Indiana Department of Education. Retrieved March 20, 2013. From http://www.doe.in.gov/achievement/technologies.