Friday, March 17, 2017

Using New Technologies

      I chose to interview one of the greatest educators I know, my mother Mona Bradwell. After 18 years of teaching, she has learned to adapt to the evolution of education in terms of relating to millennials, editing and revising curriculum to suit the needs of her students, and embracing the changes in the world of technology. Mrs. Bradwell teaches at Kensington High School in Philadelphia, PA, and due to the demographics surrounding the school's location, it became evident to my mother that the bulk of her students face many hardships that would follows them to school everyday.

      When asked about how she decided which tool to use with her students, she replied:" I look at their needs first." Mrs. Bradwell explained she has students who are with child, the only workers in the household, in foster homes, and many who can't speak English. Due to this, she uses the tool Voicethread so that her students can watch her presentations wherever , at anytime; they can move at their own pace. She also stated for ESL and ELL students, she writes out a transcript, use Google Translator to the translate the words, and then she records the presentation in Spanish. Mrs. Bradwell was clear that though her school has policies in place for online use, there are filters  on the school computers, and each website used must be on an approved list by the School District of Philadelphia. Overall, she claims not face any real obstacles. If she want to use a Web 2.0 tool, shes does not have to run the tool or application by the principal or Department Chair. Lastly, when asked about what she'd advise other educators, Mrs. Bradwell said she advise teachers who intend to use Voicethread to plan everything; "have a back-up plan for your presentation if an issue arrive--losing accessing to the internet for example, and to use a central website like Google Classrooms to to post the links to Voicethread presentations in order to make them readily accessible for all students."

Mrs. Bradwell had a lot to say in our interview and I respect that very much. Though parts of the interview covered the gist of what she was saying, I was amazed with her tenacity on the search of finding more and more tools to help her students. I learned about the benefits of perseverance during this interview.

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