Tech Director Chat #015 – Let’s Talk with Teachers

Huzzah, it’s 2015 and we have the first Tech Director Chat of the year ready for your listening enjoyment…..or derision, whatever the case may be. With so much time off thanks to the holiday break and plenty of snow days, Pete and I are ready to get back into our regular rhythm of weekly conversations.

This week was an interesting one, as Pete (my school district’s Tech Director) has embarked on an ambitious project; he’s trying to have a conversation with every teacher in the district about the direction of technology in our schools. Every….single….teacher. He’s chatting with them in small groups to make things easier, but it’s still going to be a long process. I’m not sitting in on them as another voice would only slow the conversations down, and get in the way of the teachers sharing as much as they can in the short amount of time Pete has with each one (about 30-40 minutes per group). However, I’m curious if there are any teachers out there that might want to have parts of those conversations recorded and shared on the podcast as I’d love to have teacher perspective shared more widely. Yes, yes, I was a teacher, but someone in the classroom currently would be much more valuable to weigh in on some of the questions we wrestle with about technology on a regular basis. If you’re in the district….or outside of it, and want to offer your two cents, let me know!

You can listen to the podcast with the embedded player below, or listen and subscribe using any of the following links; listen directly on ShoutEngine, subscribe via iTunes, listen via Stitcher.

Timestamps for this week’s questions:

0:49 What has Pete been up to today?

1:15 What sort of things does Pete “catch up” on?

1:30 What sort of meetings does Pete miss?

2:37 Pete is having conversations about technology past, present, and future with teachers across the district. How does he narrow that down to just 40 minutes?

4:20 Question for the audience! Would you like to be a part of one of our conversations?

4:50 Phu asks, what is the difference in cost between a MacBook cart and iPad cart?

7:32 Nancy asks, for the non-tech oriented staff members, what can we do to keep our computers running well?

9:00 So what are simple things to do on a regular basis to keep your computer running well?

11:15 JW asks, what has been the most interesting thing you’ve learned from having small conversations with teachers around the district?

14:31 Todd from Twitter wants to know why a Tech Director might decline donations or just settle on one platform?

18:40 Stump Pete!

20:00 Which Mattawan teacher was in Baltimore the night Al Kaline got his 3000th hit?

Tech Director Chat – Let’s Talk with Teachers