Interviews of 3-5 teachers who are integrating and technology:

In the school that I teach in there are close to 400 students enrolled and our school only handles K-2^nd Grade. There are 7 Kindergarten teachers, 6 1^st Grade teachers, and 5 2^nd Grade teachers. The teachers that I chose to interview were the ones that were recommended to me because they had gone to workshops and supposedly used technology more than any other teacher did in their grade.

We also have at the school a pre-school class for the mentally and physically challenged children. These teachers and aids don’t use technology with them. I honestly felt that some technology and some of the skills that these children learn could be incorporated together. For instance: colors, alphabet letters, numbers, etc. There is pre-school software available out there, I know it because I’ve seen it and I own some. I feel that it could and would stimulate these children and it would also help with their fine motor skills when typing a letter or working the mouse.

The first teacher was Mrs. W she is a Kindergarten teacher. She has been teaching for 29 years. I feel that she takes the Psycholinguist perspective of literacy. From observing her I saw her take the Utilitarian stance toward technology. The aspect of literacy that her type of technology focuses on is Social, Affective and the Metacognitive because she has a group of children working together, having fun and applying what they have already learned. The type of software that she used with her children is tool-based. She uses the Kid Pix Deluxe with her students. “Through the Alphabet with Kid Pix” she uses this as a weekly unit. In Kindergarten there is a different letter of the week starting after the 1^st six weeks. With each week and each new letter the class makes an “A to Z” book. They make a collage of pictures that begin with the letter “A” for the “A” page and then whatever letter is next week that is the letter that they move onto next. Mrs. W gives each child a printed copy at the end of the year and at Kindergarten Round Up (which is for the children who will be in Kindergarten next year) she has a copy displayed and a slideshow playing on the computers in her room. One of the computers displays on the television, also. For PTO night in April the same thing is displayed for the parents of the Kindergartners that she currently has in her class. Based on the book “It Looked Like Spilt Milk”, she pairs the class up into pairs after reading and discussing the story. She allows the pairs to work on this during their center time at computers in her classroom. Each pair of children copies (types) the phrase “It looked like a …(and at the bottom) But it wasn’t a…. She calls this the “It Looked Like…Class Book”. Allowing the children to use the wacky creating tool they can draw one thing that they see in the sky (clouds). There are big windows in her classroom, so this can be done with minimal trouble. She also makes a slideshow from the finished project to show the children. Mrs. W also does a project with Kid Pix called “Multilingual Sharing”. She feels that with this project it can help build and develop primary and newly acquired languages. Usually there is at least one bilingual child in the classrooms and she feels that this is a very good way for all of the children to acquire vocabulary skills of English words and words in other languages. Instead of pairing the children off, she will divide the class into 4 small groups and work with each group during center time. This way she is there to answer any questions that the children may have.

The 1^st Grade teacher that I interviewed was Mrs. I and she has been teaching for 5 years. Mrs. I taught Kindergarten her first year and then moved to 1^st grade for the other 4 years. The perspective of literacy that she takes with her classroom is the linguistic, because she just tells them this is how the written language is. There is no letting the children explore concepts on their own, they are just told how to learn. I feel by observing in her room that she takes the skeptical stance toward technology and literacy integration. She doesn’t do enough with the children and she’s doesn’t seem to be that interested in helping them learn with technology. The aspect of literacy that her technology focuses on is Metacognitive and Vocabulary knowledge. The type of software that she uses with her students is drill & practice. She only uses the Phonics Express Program, which goes with the phonics book that the 1^st grade uses every day. The program that is used goes from letter and sound recognition to the letter-sound associations and then high-frequency word recognition. This is all available in Level A. In Level B-D, which can assist all the way up to 3^rd grade, it has the sound recognition, letter-sound associations, word and sentence building, high frequency word recognition and reading comprehension. Mrs. I uses this complete phonics program along with the phonics books that each student has and keeps her computer literacy learning very structured and really doesn’t have any other literacy learning on the computer. When I observed her class I was sure that she would also have some practice programs or even allow them freedom of their own to research some topics on the Internet. She stayed strictly with this phonics program disk, and reflects an objectivistic epistemology stance with focusing on drill and practice.  She also emphasizes one aspect of literacy really well, and that’s phonics.

The 2^nd Grade teacher that I interviewed was Mrs. B and she has been teaching for 23 years. She taught 5 years in Kindergarten, 13 years in 1^st and 2^nd Grade Team Teaching, 2 years as an Instructional Facilitator and she also wrote a grant that year, 2 years as a Computer Teacher, and 1 year in 2^nd Grade. I was very impressed with her classroom activities when it came to literacy and technology. The perspective of literacy that she takes is the Psycholinguistic, because she allows the children to participate in their learning and their language. The stance that I feel that she takes by my observing her classroom is the Utilitarian, because she allows them to do so much and she also encourages it. The aspect of literacy that her technology focuses on is the Social, Affective, and the Metacognitive. There is a lot of social learning and strategies that these students apply when using technology. Also, I saw positive attitudes with the positive learning that was going on in her classroom. She introduces concepts (usually science/social studies) that she covers during the year. The type of software that she uses is tool-based and reference based when they retrieve information off of the Internet. She then allows her students to create PowerPoint Presentations about the particular concept that she is teaching at that time. She allows the students to go on the Internet and research the assigned topic. The students create slideshows of pictures and written information. Some of the 2^nd grade topics that she teaches are: My 5 Senses, The Four Basic Food Groups, Dinosaurs, and Louisiana, just to name a few. She has also used Inspiration with the graphic organizers. She will have them create a graph of the name of the book, characters, setting, and sequence of events. She will then have the students put the information into outline form so that it is easier for them to write their paper. She has also had them divide the story that they might be reading into paragraphs of what has happened 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd, and then have them compose the ready information into a story. I was really impressed with Mrs. B’s class. The students were interested and excited about learning. Mrs. B always seemed to have a lesson ready for them that could be accomplished on paper, and yet has a related lesson or assignment ready to go for them on the computer.

The Computer Lab teacher that I interviewed was Mrs. T and she has taught for 28 years. She has been the computer teacher for 9 years, she taught Kindergarten for 15 years, and Title I for 4 years. She conducts the computer lab for Kindergarten, 1^st grade, and 2^nd grade throughout the school. She said that she is continually searching for software that meets the needs of the school’s diverse population. Not only is she responsible for the typical child but also for the special needs children who are mainstreamed into the regular classrooms. In the last nine years, she told me that she has been extremely pleased with the software that she has purchased from Knowledge Adventure. The Kindergarten children especially enjoy the Reading Blaster. I feel that she displays more of the Psycholinguistic and the Sociolinguistic perspectives in her lab. The stance that I feel that she takes is the Utilitarian, because she is so outgoing with the children and the abundance of software that she has available in her lab for the children is great. The aspect of literacy that her technology focuses on is Metacognitive, because of the strategies that the children must use with the software and the Affective, because she provides them with such a positive attitude about the technology and learning that they have one, too. The types of educational software that she uses are mostly drill & practice and some tool-based for the older children. Mrs. T feels that since we are a Title I school it is some of her responsibility to give each child in every grade a taste of the skills that will be needed throughout the year. Skills that will strengthen them in the grade that they are in, and also at the end of the year a little review of what they should have learned during the school year. So, at the beginning and the end she lets them participate with software that helps them with introducing the skills and software that helps master the skills. During the year she has software for different curriculum areas that the children can partake in.

The District Computer Person for our area is Mrs. W. She has been a computer teacher at the high school for 25 years, and a District Technology Person for 4 years. I tried and tried to get in touch with her, but she has been at conferences out of town. She does a lot with the new teachers who come into the parish

Some of the articles that I’ve chosen to include are: “Instructional Approaches used to Integrate Literacy and Technology” (Baker, 2000), “Improving Oral Reading Fluency (and Comprehension) through the creation of Talking Books” (Oakley, 2000), and “Experiences in Collaboration: Development of an Interactive Hypermedia Program (Abbott, Walker, Zhuo, Faris, Nedeff, Oaks, Webb-Dempsey, Steele, Rudden, Domas-Brown, 1998).

I’ve picked these articles because I feel that the article by (Baker, 2000) gave good examples of the different Instructional Approaches. I could even place these teachers in these approaches. The 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. B, demonstrated the Inquiry Approach to me. She had a great deal of student centered learning with the research that she had the students do. Even though she might have given them a direction to go in as in the topic to research, it was the student that picked the particular information they wanted to pursue out of that broad topic. The Process Approach to Writing Instruction was demonstrated to me by the 2^nd grade teacher Mrs. B, and the Kindergarten teacher Mrs. W. They each had individual or small group writing within their classroom with technology. There classrooms differed in the content that was actually written, but that was because of the differences in the ages of the children and what the children were capable of accomplishing on their own. There will always be obstacles with any lesson that a teacher teaches, but with technology as a learning tool, I feel that it could be a very rewarding challenge. These children will take away with them the experience that these particulates teachers gave them, and that is what teaching is all about.

The article by (Oakley, 2000) gave me the insight on the 1^st grade teacher, Mrs. I. This article stated that the drill and practice software does improve the automatic word recognition, which aids in improving the oral fluency in which children should learn to master. Software programs can help children master these skills along with improving their comprehension. Mrs. I in the 1^st grade gave the children this opportunity with the drill and practice software and also Mrs. B in the 2^nd grade took it a step further with the children in letting them use the Inspiration software. Fluency isn’t just “picked up” it takes practice, and it is closely related to comprehension. When these skills are mastered a child can feel competent in their reading and have self-fulfillment with themselves.

The article by (Abbott, Walker, Zhuo, Faris, Nedeff, Oaks, Webb-Dempsey, Steele, Rudden, Domas-Brown, 1998), showed me that collaboration needed to play a big part in teaching our children. There needs to be open communication between the teachers and between the different grade levels. This project as shown me what is basically taking place from K-2^nd Grade, and frankly there are some big gaps along the way. In Kindergarten the children are allowed to create on the technology in the classroom, in the 1^st grade it seems that the children aren’t allowed the same freedom or the ability to express themselves as well. I the 2^nd grade the children are getting to be involved in an experience that will stay with them forever. I just didn’t feel that there was a consistency in the literacy and technology in the classrooms as each grade was investigated. In the other Kindergarten classrooms technology was being used with literacy themes, just not as much as Mrs. W’s class. In the other 1^st grade classrooms, the same thing was happening as in Mrs. I’s classroom. In the other 2^nd grade classrooms there was more going on than in the 1^st grade classrooms, but not as extensive as Mrs. B’s classroom. As far as the computer lab with Mrs. T, all of the children are getting the same experience is given to each child within the school as far as drill and practice in the major content areas of the curriculum.

If I were to develop my own literacy program that integrates literacy and technology it would be some reading and a follow up with a writing exercise. Software that has a starter story and then have a place where the child can finish the story any way that they choose. Sort of like the “Choose your own Adventure Books”, but it would have colorful graphics and contain a word bank that the children could use. It would also have different levels. It would have the parts of the story labeled so that the children could learn literary skills while composing their masterpiece. It would have a place to go for ideas to write about and would also have for the younger children a story already written and places in the story that they could fill in.