For this badge, I interviewed Irene Carstairs, a deputy head teacher at Amisfield Primary School in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Even though this is a rural school with only 45 pupils in the whole school, they have good access to technology. All classrooms in the school have either a Smartboard or a Promethean board, and have access to laptops and netbooks. This technology is available to be used at any time. In Scotland, technology is issued by the local authority, however the school budget can be used to buy additional resources such as Education City and Accelerated Reading programs, which can provide extra support for children who may struggle in certain areas of study. These resources are innovative and fun for children to use and she believes they are very effective in contributing to children's learning. In addition, Ms Carstairs mentioned that the parent council may also contribute to extra technological resources. She also mentioned the training of using such technology in the classroom is offered very often and is of a very high standard, which she found very effective and helpful and has given her more confidence to use technology in the classroom. Due to the location of the school, connectivity problems can sometimes occur and become a difficulty in the classroom. However, the tech support system is excellent and always helpful. This support has led to Ms Carstairs being very confident in using technology in her classroom and she can see how this technology benefits the children’s learning. By interviewing Ms Carstairs, I have been given a lot more insight into technology and how this will impact my future career. As I will be teaching in Scotland, I now know that I will have the opportunity to receive excellent training for technology. I believe this will be very useful and allow me to incorporate this learned knowledge into the classroom to benefit the children in my future classroom. In my future classroom, I will be taking advantage of the availability of such resources and including the use of them in lessons in order to create fun and exciting learning experiences. On the whole, I believe the interview with Ms Carstairs was very effective as it gave me an in-depth perspective on technology in the classroom and the support given to ensure it is being used correctly to benefit the children's learning. I will definitely remember this useful information when I graduate and start teaching, as it is so important to use the technology that is available and how this impacts the children's learning.
