Technology Mentoring: Through the Eyes of K-5 Practitioners by Comfort Akwaji

Today's youth are tomorrow's leaders. Continuing computer and information technology innovations are shaping tomorrow's society. Involvement and leadership in the enterprises of that society will require increasing competency and proficiency in the ability to use computer-based technology. Unfortunately, many children still have limited access to technology resources and lack effective role models. The teacher's role therefore, in influencing students' attitudes towards technology and providing opportunities for interaction with technology is critical.

Building learner-centered classrooms incorporating technology integration requires teachers to achieve some level of technology literacy and to see technology integration as an important and legitimate strategy for learning. To do this, teachers need not only professional development or training but also on-the-job support on an ongoing basis from a variety of sources.

Following is a case that exemplifies an individualized approach to on-the-job ongoing professional development or technology learning. The approach involved two in-service teachers. This teacher-to-teacher collaboration/sharing and support resulted in a renewed enthusiasm for teaching and students engaged in authentic hands-on experiences with technology. Modeling the use and integration of technology into the curriculum takes time, patience, leadership, administrative support and a community of learners.

Mentor's Technology Profile

My interest in technology stems from a lack of exposure to technology during my childhood in Cameroon, West Africa. As an undergraduate student in Psychology at the former Mankato State University (now Minnesota State University at Mankato), I began using technology while typing term papers and projects on my Sears electric typewriter. One day I ran out of typewriter ribbon and was forced to use whatever was available to finish my project. That led to my first experience with a computer and opened my eyes to the world of more efficient technology.

The next step in my education was choosing Iowa State for graduate studies. At first, I was frustrated to learn that all papers were to be done on a word processor. However, an assistantship in the department of Curriculum and Instruction provided additional exposure to computers and new interactions with software applications and email. I became hooked and have become a life-long learner, with technology as the core of my learning and teaching. Continuous exposure and use has allowed me to become more comfortable with technology as my journey of learning continues. Keeping abreast of research developments in the field of education, leadership, technology in teacher education, educational computing as well as best practice, is something I cherish.

This allows me to develop appropriate activities aimed at accommodating the diverse needs of my students, which is an example of putting theory into practice. Working with young children pushes me to continually look for ways to enhance their learning. As a graduate student in Curriculum and Instruction and Pre-leadership programs at Iowa State University and as teacher with the Columbia Public Schools, I was afforded the opportunity to mentor a colleague. I found the idea of collaborating with another teacher both exciting and unique.

Mentee's Profile

My name is Wendy. Most of my computer experience has been very specialized and limited. I have been a practicing nurse for sixteen years and an elementary teacher for ten years. My first experience with computers started while attending college and working at Smith Care Center, a facility for mainly Alzheimer and cancer patients. It was one of the first facilities of its kind to implement the use of computers for care plans, medical records, doctor's orders, records and prescription forms, etc. I enthusiastically spent many hours after work perfecting my computer skills and helping other staff members learn how to use the computer.

After graduation, I worked in the education and nursing fields and continued to use computer programs specific to my field. Next, I used the computer at the Finkbine Mansion for billing, building maintenance, renting, building contracts, and written communications between clients. I spent hours learning how to retain and recall specialized information. I also learned how to troubleshoot and update software by trial and error. It was frustrating because the use of time and its availability was a critical factor in much of my work.

When I worked with the West Columbia Community School district as a special education nurse, I used the computer primarily for email, documentation of safety and medical records, specific adaptation plans for disabled students and behavior modification charts. When my mom bought herself a personal computer, I played around with it and enjoyed learning at my own pace with no pressures and deadlines to meet. I became familiar with AOL and email. I purchased my first PC in 1999 from Gateway, initiated AOL and email, and used this daily while communicating with my teaching partner. I am currently team teaching kindergarten for the Columbia Community School District at an inner city school with a diverse population.

Teacher-to-Teacher Mentoring

Various forms of mentoring have been utilized to facilitate technology learning. Babcock (chapter 8) lists a number of such models and provides a historical overview of staff development approaches in the past two decades. Research indicates that compared with workshops and similar forms of training that Smith & O'Bannon (1999) describe as a "¡Kone stop workshop with limited support and follow up for integration," one-on-one ongoing mentoring seems to be a promising approach in technology or other learning (Thompson & Schmidt, 1994). This approach has been implemented in university as well as in K-12 settings. Overall, research indicates that teachers are the best teachers of teachers (Marsh, 2000).

The idea of "Teachers Teaching Teachers" is utilized often with technology learning. Such an approach, if used consistently, could positively impact teachers' mastery of technology and help integrate technology into the classroom. Locally and nationally, there is a strong need for technical and financial support for teachers to take technology courses and receive on-the-job training through staff development. This concern is emphasized by the American Library Association's (ALA) Presidential Committee on Information Literacy which defines a literate person as, "one who must be able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate and effectively use the needed information." Information in this context includes not only the printed word but also media, computer, and network information (Plotnick, 1999).

Sally Bowman Alden, Executive Director of the Computer Learning Foundation, recently stated that, "Teachers can learn from one another¡K.by observing other teachers in action." The National Association for the Education of Young Children emphasizes the need for increased professional development for teachers in technology. They also mention that "the use of professional judgment in specific use of technology is needed" and add concerns about the role of the teacher in evaluating appropriate uses of technology (NAEYC, 1996). "It is impossible for teachers to utilize computers successfully without training" (Haugland & Wright, 1997). With these concerns and factors in mind, it is clear that teachers need mentoring and who is better qualified for such a role than other teachers? Babcock in chapter 8 discusses the need for a staff development approach that is more supportive and collegial in nature. Following is an example of such a mentoring approach.

The Mentoring Experience

As a participant in the Iowa State University graduate course "Technology in Teacher Education," I served as a mentor to a colleague. My classmates chose their mentees from a list of faculty volunteers. I chose to work with this colleague because we shared a classroom and she expressed interest in learning more about technology integration in the classroom, and as an experiment in expanding the mentoring program. We met for the first time during the summer of 2000. We began to meet in June on a regular basis both in and out of our school building to discuss and plan for the academic year. These informal meetings enabled us to get to know each other better, a prerequisite for establishing a good working relationship. As a result of my interest in technology, part of our discussion was about using technology as a tool to support teaching and
learning.

As a classroom teacher, mentoring a colleague in the field was a natural choice. What an opportunity to subtly influence someone through my excitement with technology! After consulting with my professor, I was ready. Wendy and I met to establish the following goals:

1. Become more familiar with the benefits of a computer
2. Learn some short-cuts in navigating the computer
3. Have a classroom computer and printer that are reliable and fast
4. Learn how to use a scanner
5. Have computers in the classroom that are accessible to children to use as a center (work station)
6. Have access to the Smart Board to be used for whole group instruction
7. Learn about spreadsheets and the benefits for classroom teachers
8. Receive time, free of children in the classroom, to learn and concentrate on learning new materials
9. Learn appropriate computer terminology
10. Learn more about email, attachments, etc.
11. Become comfortable enough with technology skills to be able to help others who may be hesitant to implement computer technology into teaching and learning.

From the beginning, Wendy was excited and enthusiastic about everything because she had a lot of exposure to technology in her previous work experiences. As we began our technology journey, we encountered several roadblocks, major issues that needed to be resolved before we could proceed. Wendy, a former nurse, was feeling overwhelmed with the responsibility for a whole classroom. This situation provided an opportunity to discuss realistically the complexities of teaching and what it takes to integrate technology into the curriculum while effectively managing the other responsibilities associated with teaching.

Mentoring Activities and Artifacts

Our first project began shortly after school started in the Fall of 2000.
Our goal was to use technology in developmentally appropriate ways while playing a significant role in the learning process. We asked the students how they got ready for kindergarten.

Image 1, Chapter 7

The students drew pictures and dictated sentences to describe their drawings.

Figure 2 Chapter 7,

Figure 3, Chapter 7

Wendy and the students learned how to use the digital camera to take pictures
We showed our students pictures of our preparation for school.

Figure 4, Chapter 7

Figure 5, Chapter 7

The students took pictures of their drawings to be later placed in a slide using Kid Pix software. Next, we began learning how to use Kid Pix. We took pictures of students with a digital camera and inserted them into a Kid Pix slide. We learned and practiced setting up a slide show with students' pictures and continued to insert new pictures of students into program.

Figure 6, Chapter 7


We also worked on taking pictures of the students' work with the digital camera, and putting these into slides. Later, we added a transition (clapping sound) to all of the students' pictures. I demonstrated using the computer for lesson plans and saved a template on a disk for Wendy. She continued using her personal computer for creating lesson plans, communicating with me, creating name lists and searching the Internet for appropriate kindergarten sites.
We shared and discussed information from her searches, the appropriateness of website for young learners, its content, and use in the classroom. Wendy reported that she enjoyed being able to use a computer to create quick and attractive headings for students' projects and attractive parent letters in a time saving way.

We continued creating the slide show together by capturing photo shots ofour students and inserting them into the program. Gradually, we had enough information and pictures to complete our project, with additional technical assistance from our Iowa State University "TechCo Master Teacher."
During "Open House" in the month of September, we shared our slide show with our students and their families. We were pleased that it was such a huge success. We attended the mentor/mentee gathering at Iowa State University one afternoon. Wendy was introduced to the other mentors and their mentees. She reviewed our goals and spoke on what we were learning and implementing in the classroom. We continued to practice performing various tasks with the computer. Wendy wrote many letters, developed worksheets, lesson plans, student information forms, and record keeping using her personal computer. We utilized the computer a great deal when we began assessing the students and documenting and preparing for reading groups, conferences, and progress reports. We took additional pictures of the students (with Wendy taking most of them) to use in literacy related activities such as interactive or shared writing, conversation, and name writing and recognition/social skills.

In October, we continued communicating with each other via email. After a field trip to Iowa State University's C.Y. Stephens Auditorium to see Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Very Quiet Cricket, I shared ideas for technology integration. We accessed Eric Carl's website, viewed some of his books and corresponded with him via email. The students dictated the content of the email and asked questions about his life, such as whether or not he had children and how he began writing books about children.

The month of November brought with it new challenges. We had difficulty composing/experimenting with computer technology due to slow computers (by the time the computer was ready for us to work our planning time was over) and limited printer options - no color no ink. We experienced numerous time limitations due to other expectations within the school and with class planning time. We had limited amounts of time to plan due to schedule changes and other teacher obligations. Varying and high levels of diversity among students, students' abilities, and academic levels increased the amount of time needed to prepare lessons and activities.

During the month of December we continued to prepare lessons using the computer and communicated via email daily. We looked forward to putting together more slide shows, using Kid Pix and possibly iMovie as the semester progressed.

Reflections On the Mentoring Experience & Lessons Learned

This experience was mutually beneficial for us. In her reflection on the experience Wendy wrote: My partner helped me learn more about computer technology, its integration in the classroom, and making it accessible to children. We continued to envision future uses of technology in our classroom. We also modeled the benefits of technology for our colleagues. I found technology to be exciting, fun, efficient and beneficial for my students and me. They were excited by computers and loved to experiment and learn with them. They will discover over the years how important technology is. I believe that our young learners will become competent and efficient technologists now and in the future.

This rewarding experience came with some challenges however. As we all know, when two or more people interact, the challenge of differences in opinions, personality, and many other problems surface. Because of our close proximity (teaching side by side), these differences became more obvious over time. The technology mentoring experience was good for us because it forced us to not only learn to be patient with each other, but also sensitive and trusting as well.
Personally, this experience reinforced my belief in facilitating and supporting learning rather than being a "gate keeper." Consequently, Wendy initiated what she wanted to learn through the list of goals she generated, while I assumed the role of providing "just-in-time" or ongoing support, including researching additional appropriate hardware/software or other needed support.

My colleagues and professor, served as a valued source of support through class discussions and advise from the group on specific issues related to the mentoring relationship. At a certain point during the mentoring relationship, time to meet became a concern. Wendy expressed her frustration with having to juggle too many things. The group's consensus to be sensitive and patient and a discussion based on research about the developmental stages in technological learning and integration was very helpful. Armed with this new knowledge and backed by my group's support, I became increasingly more intuitive about Wendy's needs. Furthermore, this mentoring experience again drove home the idea of collaboration. As Chuang 2001 (chapter 4) puts it "being a mentor doesn't mean that I have mastered all the technology skills¡K" but rather, afforded me the opportunity to continue to learn from my experience and that of my classmates as well as discover along the way issues related to technology in schools.

These issues include barriers and other teacher related concerns, an awareness of the fact that there is no "one size fits all" approach to technology learning, and so on. The importance of just-in-time support for adult technology learning, leadership issues in technology diffusion and curriculum integration and the significance of teacher-to-teacher mentoring "birds of the same feather" that is, combining experiences in similar curriculum areas such as a teacher with early childhood teaching background paired with a teacher with the same or similar teaching responsibilities, can not be overemphasized. My knowledge of curriculum development and instructional technology coupled with my teaching experience and experience in the application of technology in mentoring, made it easier for me to support/assist Wendy in looking at the what, when, why of technology use, and its integration into the curriculum

As a result of my own experiences and observing Wendy deal with or bring up these issues on a regular basis, I wondered whether or not the rest of the staff had the same concerns. Consequently, some baseline data was collected for comparison using the tool shown in the tables below .

Table 1, Chapter 7

Table 2, Chapter 7

Interestingly, the data collected via this survey are similar to those in reports on teacher's experiences with technology in many states and nationwide. In a recent survey of more than half of the State of Iowa Schools, published in the Columbia Register (March 20, 2001), it was reported that lack of training or staff development (83%), insufficient funding (43%), out-of-date hardware and software (22%), and inadequate technical support (10%) were the barriers to using technology most expressed by teachers.

Table 3, Chapter 7

The results indicated that most of the teachers shared the same or similar barriers to technology use. A majority of them expressed a need for modeling/demonstration and mentoring. Thus, the need for individualized mentoring to meet them wherever they are (no one size fits all).

New Direction for the Future

Wendy now knows about technology. The next step is helping her see how to make it more integral to her curriculum and move it into the hands of the students. This suggests a continuation of the mentoring experience in order to accommodate her personal technology learning needs as well as those related to curriculum integration. In addition, I see a need to create Study Groups or Learning Communities for early childhood and primary education teachers who are integrating technology and Peer Mentors to support their learning.

Research indicates that "if they (teachers) are to successfully incorporate a new and complex resource like computer software into their teaching practice, they must have access to other people from whom they can learn, either experts who have already mastered the resource or a community of teacher-learners who pool their efforts and share their exploratory findings" (Becker, 1994). At the high school and college levels, student mentors are increasingly being used to support peers, staff and teacher education faculty. Demonstrations by teachers who have successfully used technology might also be useful.

Consideration for Pre/In-Service Teacher Preparation

I believe that practitioners or in-service teachers have much to offer teacher preparation programs and the rest of the technology world about the potential of technology in schools. Teachers have a vital role in fostering the technology agenda. However, both pre- and in-service teachers experience many barriers, including insufficient computer skills, lack of resources, and low preparedness in responsible educational practices with technology, low comfort level, lack of time, and lack of role models. Additionally, pre-service teachers often comment about how rarely they are able to observe effective uses of technology in their field component (Strudler, 1999). This suggests that there not only is a problem of turning educators on to using technologies, but also the challenge of showing teachers how to use technology (equipment & software) in their classroom.

Thus, collaborative partnerships between teacher preparation programs and practitioners in the field could be the backbone of successful integration of technology into the classroom. A" Mentoring Triangulation Program" could be established. Mentoring Triangulation will involve multiple individuals actively working together in the mentoring of pre- and in-service teachers. It will involve the development of new and shared visions (socially constructed) about technology use and its integration in the curriculum, for the attainment of identified goals and perceived outcomes.

There are three elements of triangulation:
a) common to all model iterations -technology integration expertise, and educational philosophy expertise, need for field interaction
b) teaching strategy expertise, need for technology integration expertise
c) technology awareness, need technology integration expertise, need for teaching strategy expertise.

It provides a vehicle for the transfer of implicit as well as formal knowledge, ideas, and understandings that promote quality improvements among practitioners and researchers. The vehicle thrives on reflective activity. In contrast to the typical mentor-mentee relationship, the triangulation relationship provides a much richer cross expertise experience. Shown below in figure 1 is a general Mentoring Triangulation model, followed by several example models (Models 1-4) depicting differing configurations of mentoring relationships.

Figure 1 Shared Vision Development

For example:
Model 1: The in-service teacher (master/technology-using teacher, who is comfortable with and uses technology frequently), preservice teacher and a University Mentor.

Model 1

Model 2: An in-service teacher (novice with little or no technology-use experience), an in-service teacher (master/technology-using teacher who is comfortable with/ and uses technology frequently), and University Mentor or Support Person (s).

Model 2

Model 3: Two in-service teachers (master teacher/technology-using teachers, who are comfortable with and use technology frequently), and a University Mentor or Regional Service Center Support Person.

Model 4: In-service teacher (novice/no or little technology use), and In- service teacher (master/technology-using teacher, who is comfortable with and uses technology frequently) and Regional Service Center Support Person(s).

Model 4

The general model has the potential to allow all involved, an increased understanding of technology and its impact on teaching and learning. Additionally, a strategy which involves team meetings will accommodate multiple views and provide an increased understanding of ideas, feelings, motives, needs, and beliefs about the mentoring relationship and technology (theories, framework, teaching strategies to be utilized, planning, implementation and follow up assessment, and ways of knowing/doing, etc.) This model promotes ongoing networking for information sharing among teachers in the current year as well as over the years with newly added members.

This approach is similar to Iowa State University's (ISU) "Technology in Teacher Education" mentoring model in that it will be ongoing with one-on-one support. Potential support will come from the Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to use Technology (PT3) team, Regional/Area education agency, school districts, and individual school departments. Although each graduate student was assigned one or two faculty mentees, the course Professor and the rest of the class members served as resources for the mentor. Therefore, although assigned to a specific mentee or mentees, the mentor always had the support and resources to provide feedback.

Unique to the proposed Mentoring Triangulation Program is the fact that participants will have a mentor and other support personnel to work with. First individually, and then together, the trio will assess their technology and curricula needs, plan, implement, assess impact, revise, monitor progress, and follow-up resulting in a comprehensive approach to mentoring. The University Mentor and Regional Service Center Support Person(s) will have the additional role of researching and bringing to the group available research or other useful information for study. A learning community where each team member will share in and/or lead a discussion on related literature or issues arising from the mentoring experience would be formed and maintained. This will be a venue not only for the discussion of the issues related to technology and mentoring, but also an implication for student learning, parent involvement, involvement of teachers and administrators and for the future.