Interview with a Techie

Full Disclosure

I have known Mr. B since elementary school and he was pivotal in helping me get my job, so we are friends.  I would not normally have so much fun during an interview.  Also, I used first initials of last names so this interview would not come up during a online search.

For this interview I sat down with Mr. B.  Mr. B is the band leader/music teacher at the high school, he is also the building technology integration specialist.  The T.I.S. for each building is new this year and even though it has only been a short time, Mr. B has already held many workshops designed to get teachers up to speed with technology.  Keep in mind that these answers only reflect what is going on in the high school, while I did some background on some of the overarching parts, I’m not sure about the day to day procedure in every building.

I brought him some butterflies to thank him for granting me the interview

The Interview

Me: Do you happen to know what student information system we use in the district?  

Mr. B:  Right now at the high school we use MMS, and also to come extent School Loop

Me: Do those two programs integrate well together?

Mr. B: No, not at all.  But we have found a way to make it work

Me: What do we have in the way of grade books for students?  Anything that revolves around tech?

Mr. B: Have you even checked your School Loop? *laughs at me* yes, teachers are able to do all or their grading online using School Loop.  By contract we only have to update grades twice a quarter but if you ask around I’m sure you’ll find most teachers update them much more than that.

Me: What about webpages dedicated to a teachers class?

Mr. B:  Those are available though School Loop but to be honest I don’t think a lot of people use them.  Many teachers though have gone out on their own to create some, they usually use a site builder like Weebly or Wordpress.

Me: This is an odd question because I don’t really know what this is, but do we have a curriculum warehouse?

Mr. B: Do you remember the NEASC review from 2 years ago?

Me: Yes

a (fake) picture from the interview

Mr. B: We used Atlas in our last NEASC review, that gave people a way to get their curriculum online and let them collaborate with others… essentially a curriculum warehouse.

Me: Ahhh I see … next question though how do we maintain our district website?

Mr. B:  Right now there is an update in the works but presently we have a cookie cutter site though School Loop.  The person primarily in charge of updating the site is the Tech-Ed teacher here at the high school Ms. K.

Me: What about our school website?

Mr. B: Again we have a pretty standard one though School Loop… want to guess who updates that one?

Me: Ms. K?

Mr. B: You got it!

Me: How about the facilities calendar?  You know like when you have to book the high school gym or auditorium.

Mr. B: We use School Dude for that.  So if you want to book a place for something like a concert you log in using your school username and password and fill out a form.  School Dude is actually maintained by the facilities director, Mr. H.

Me: Most impressive … anything else you want to add?

Mr. B: Yes just that we are a Google school.  And the google tools integrate well with School Loop.  Any student here can enter their school issued email and password to log on to the majority of the google suite of tech tools.

Me: Thanks!

Mr. B: Anytime.