Interview with an ELA Teacher

I interviewed a resource room teacher.  She teaches ELA in a small setting where instruction is very individualized.  The maximum amount of students she has at one time is five.  She does her best to incorporate technology in the classroom but felt there were many challenges she faced.  There is a SMART Board in the room but it is not working properly.  She has two computers in the room.  She uses E Books which are provided by the school. She expressed that the problem with the E books is that only one person can be logged into the book at a time.  The district uses AIMSweb which is a progress monitoring system that provides assessment tool which are given to the students in a frequent manner.  The data is then graphed and used to show the students progress and where they stand in comparison to other students in the district.  She also utilizes a variety of internet resources to provide practice of specific grammar or phonics skills. One of her students uses an AlphaSmart.  An AlphaSmart is a small word processing device.  This is often used for student who has difficultly writing.  She felt one of her largest concerns surrounding technology in her classroom was that she lacked the resources to incorporate it in her instruction.  In our discussion, she provided me with at least three examples of tools that she would love to use but has no means of doing so.  Overall, I felt she has done a nice job of using the technology that she is provided with.