Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Professional Experience
Julie’s career experiences have alternated between education and technology.
After college, Julie was an elementary teacher in Oklahoma for seven years. Then
she realized she could make three times her pay as a Cobol computer
programmer, which she did for six years. Her next career step was in child
development, raising her two children – a daughter who is fluent in French and
travels around the world (studied in Paris, taught ESL in Korea, now living in
Montreal), and a son who is currently a student at the University of Wisconsin. She
then earned a Masters degree in Computer Education in 1998, and taught 4th and
8th grades in Wisconsin and in a private school in Colorado.
Most recently, Julie found a way to combine her technology and educational
interests as an Instructional Technology Coordinator for Adams Twelve, and this
past July she advanced into her current position as the director of the department.
The Interview
Q. What are a few of the projects that you and your department have
been working on recently?
Before last year, I and the other IT coordinators worked with individual teachers to
integrate technology components into their lessons in order to increase student
achievement. Starting last year, we expanded our focus to pursue more systemic
change across the school district. Some of those projects are:
We integrated instructional technology components into the district’s K-5
Language Arts literacy curriculum – matching up the Model Reading lessons
with United Streaming video components and creating a variety of literacy
activities on the computer for individual students.
For NCLB, 8th graders’ technology literacy must now be assessed. The first
year, in 2007, they took a paper & pencil scantron test. A great way to test
technology, isn’t it? Last year we developed an inquiry-based assessment,
80% of which is a research project, and 20% involves producing a digital
product.
Another big initiative was putting together a Highway 21 technology
conference for the district this past June. We brought in national speakers,
had a variety of breakout sessions, and all the participants were given a Star
Cart – with an LCD projector, document camera and net book!
We’ve begun to offer professional development via online courses for district
personnel. We’re finding that we get higher participation in this format.
We’re developing online courses for “credit retrieval”, so students who have
failed a course can relearn what they missed and get credit for the course –
allowing them to graduate on time.
Compared to a couple of years ago, when we were in a mostly reactive mode –
running out to help individual teachers, we’re now trying to think bigger. We’re
taking a more district-wide, systemic approach.
Q. What are important knowledge and skills needed for your type of
position?
Well, one important expertise is knowledge of Library Services, which I don’t have;
I’ve hired a coordinator for this area. You need the ability to communicate – both
the good and the bad. You need to honor the struggle. I meet a lot of people who
want what’s best for kids, but we may not have the money or resources to do what
they want. You need an appreciation for both sides of the house – the Information
Technology people who are more concerned about the machines (their security
and reliability), versus me and my group who are more concerned about the
students.
The other thing is keeping current. I read while I’m on the elliptical in the morning.
I keep up with my national organizations and various periodicals, like eSchool News
and ISTE’s Learning and Leading with Technology. There are some great blogs
about the field – look up David Thornburg, Ian Jukes and the Committed Sardine,
which boils down web changes, and David Warlick at the Citation Machine. I listen
to books on tape when I’m commuting.
Q. What are some personal attributes that are important for people who
work in this field?
You must be willing to listen. You can’t just go in and shove your ideas off on
anybody. It’s a job based on relationships – building the trust with a teacher that
the suggestions you offer are for the benefit of his or her students. Put the time
and energy into building relationships, so that when you go back in and say “I
really think you should do this”, they’re going to listen because you’ve shown them
that you understand what they’re doing.
Q. Are there any online courses, web pages, or other tech products that
you have built and are particularly proud of?
One of my Masters requirements was to plan a virtual trip to Japan for kids, based
on a piece of literature. That grew into my teaching an online course on how to
build and run virtual field trips – at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. That
was in the 1990’s; now it sounds so ordinary. But I’m proud of that. I’m also proud
of our new online classes for the district. For the first one we developed, I felt like
Indiana Jones, with the big boulder coming up behind me; we were just barely
getting it done in time!
Q. What do you enjoy most about your job (or previous jobs)?
I enjoy the ability to impact and change things for students. We’ve done trainings
and shown people how to do things with technology that are going to impact kids,
and we’ll help those teachers follow through. I do miss the relationships I had
when I was a teacher, which I don’t get with this job; but I feel that some of the
district-wide things we’re doing are still helping kids.
Q. What kinds of trends to you see in the near- and long-term future of
instructional technology?
We’re going to see more online learning among the student ranks, and we will be
offering more in our district. We’re associated with Colorado Virtual Academy, but
we don’t receive any money when students take those courses. The states of
Michigan and Alabama now require that students take at least one online class to
graduate!
We’ll see more collaboration among students across the district, country and
world. If we don’t restructure some of what we’re doing, we’ll continue to lose
more and more students. We need to engage those students who are bored, and
technology is one of the ways where they have greater buy-in, greater freedom of
expression, they can communicate, and it honors the kids.
Q. Do you have any words of wisdom for students of the field (such as
myself)?
Be contagious with your enthusiasm. Be willing to be a mentor to your peers and
students. Be willing to keep exploring the new frontiers of tech innovations, and
share them with anyone you can wrangle. In our district, if we have a few people in
each building that understand the value of technology in students’ learning, we
can really build on that foundation. But we really need those people who are willing
to be building leaders.