Interactivity #5

I interviewed a middle school (5 -8) music teacher in Closter School District. For the first question, she was not sure if she has heard about NETS or not. When she rewrote her curriculum this year, she had to use new technology standards, but she is not sure if that was the new NETS. She did not know if her school has begun to implement the new NETS for students or not. She did not know if her state/province has begun to implement the new NETS for students either. For the question, “How will the NETS be used at your school, district, state/province,” she answered “I am not sure”. She also said that her school is a fairly technology oriented school, so she would believe that they would just continue to fund technology. Because her school district is interested in using technology, the transition will be smooth and fair. However, she did not know when her school, district or state will complete the transition.

During the interview, I did not get lengthy answers because the teacher was not that passionate about using technology. I received only short answers and most of them were “I do not know.” It was obvious that the teacher is not knowledgeable about the NETS-S or NETS-T. Her initial reaction to the standards was that she is familiar with some standards, but unfamiliar with the fact that there is such thing called, NETS. I do not know if this school has begun to implement the NETS-S or NETS-T, since she had no idea what is going on. However, the school definitely has a guideline or technology standards to use when they write the curriculum. The school was considering technology in education seriously. I was surprised at the teacher’s responses of “I do not know,” because I assumed that every teacher knows about NETS (at least, I am learning about it in college). It seems technology became more important and emphasized these days. The teacher I interviewed was very young and she perhaps learned about NETS from her technology education class. However, I could understand her indifference about NETS because she must be already very busy with all the band and orchestra rehearsals. She has to put more efforts on teaching students with their instruments. 

As a future teacher I would speak to others within my school about NETS-S and NETS-T with more knowledge and information. I will be able to explain some standards along with my lesson plans and I will try to pay attention to updates of new NETS.      

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