Librarian Interview Reflection

Today I went to interview the librarian at my school. I came up with 16 questions that were about the use of technology. My media coordinator has been at my school (a middle school) for two years. Before she came to our school she was at the high school for 6 years. She was able to talk to me about both schools and the amount of technology that is used. While working at the high school, she was constantly using technology with teachers and one on one with the students for research and various projects. She said that there were not many days that the AV cart was not checked out or not being rolled from one classroom to the next. At the middle school level, there has not been as much interest for technology use with teachers. A program that is used a lot is power point for students, but she feels like she is not being used as much as she would like as a librarian. At the high school, she was able to coordinate and teach with the technology coordinator, but at the middle school she has not co-taught together. Right now we are currently without a technology coordinator. Another point that was brought up was that there was a lot more technology programs available for students to use at the high school than at the middle school. At the high school, students were able to use microsoft publisher program for many of their projects, where as, the middle school mainly has microsoft word. We talked about how to get more teachers and students involved with using more technology and she felt the best way would be to have the money to get the better programs, then to educate the teachers on how to use the programs. She said many teachers will say that they don't have time to use technology in their classrooms, but she wants them to understand that it's about intergrating technology into their lesson. Another answer I thought was interesting was that how technology has changed from the time she began as a librarian till now. When she began as a librarian she did more teaching students how to make power points and slide shows. Now it is making power points more intersting with video clips and digital images. Most students today already know how to make power points. Our librarian tries to make everyone aware that she is available for use in the classroom and available to plan with teachers. Our interview was kind of an eye-opener for myself. It made me realize that I should be using more technology in my own classroom.