Interview of Site Supervisor

Technology Center: Oconee County School System

Question: If you don't mind, please start by introducing yourself and state your title.
My name is Ryan White, and I am the Director of Technology for Oconee County
Schools.

Question: What degrees are required for your position?

They want a minimum of a Tier-1 Leadership for a leadership position.

Question: What degrees do you hold?

I have a BA in history from West Georgia, a Master's of Ed in history from West
Georgia, and a Specialist in Instructional Technology from Kennesaw. I have a leadership
certification from West Georgia, and I am working on my doctorate right now from Valdosta.

Question: Oh really, what is your doctorate going to be in?

So, I finished all my coursework, and it's in leadership. But I am looking at teachers who
go out and earn Google certifications in Microsoft and Apple, and what are their
experiences and why do they do it?

Question: That’s great! So, what are your job responsibilities?

My specific job responsibilities are mainly being plugged into the network and it all falls
in my lap. So, everything from access points, which has desktops, laptops, and
Chromebooks, but then you got other stuff too. We have tons of software, PowerSchool,
and lots of running the back end of instructional technology that plays all the teams
together to work for each of their goals but also for the department in school systems
goals

Question: So, how many people do you have under your supervision?
 You will have to do the math for me, the instruction technologist I have two and a half
people on my sis or data same I have 2 and 1/2 IT staff secretary and then I have four
people in operation 16 people.

Question: How are you meeting the needs of faculty and staff during the transition of some
of the students participating in remote learning?
What was interesting about that is basically they're just two sides to that coin. So, there is
a distance learner whose conversations actually start with a curriculum director and they
come to me and say this is what we want to do instead of Technology. When we shut
down in the spring it was more of a we've never used Google meet, so can we turn that
on. So, yes you need to know XYZ, and it's not a problem but it's just making sure that
you know here's all the technology available, and here's what we can approve of right
now. This is how we can support them. We had the LMS already in place, and we had
just doubled our instructional technology staff. We were 1:1 also, so my level of
confidence was much higher than maybe other people thought it would be and definitely
better than some other districts. We were positioned very well.

Question: That is great! So, the next question is similar, but how are you meeting the
remote needs of students?
Okay, so, if we are talking about back in the Spring when we were 100% remote? The
main concerns were how to switch out a Chromebook to be repaired. Do you let it sit?
You have it in this classroom setting for five days, so do you wipe stuff down or do you
let it sit there? Then, who's going to take up all those devices, you know? How do you
structure support for the different schools, and how do you learn a new piece of
technology remotely? These were all the types of questions that we just immediately had
the answer, and we pivoted hard. We may have tripped a couple of times, but we got
there really quick. We had the people in place to make materials and be there for that
support. Then when it comes to right now, you know, we are mostly face-to-face. We
have a couple hundred kids who are virtual, so we're able to take care of those virtual kids
through the school. But my team works directly with the curriculum directors and
 directly with the schools to make sure the kids can login to the platform or if the mom
needs help. We work more one-on-one with the parents than we did in the spring.

Question: You guys are awesome at doing that for sure. I've heard so many great things.
Okay so now we'll move on to budget, do you have a budget that you control, and how do
you make those decisions on how to spend those resources?
So, the biggest pot of money I have is E-Splost. With that, when I first came here, I put
everything on a replacement cycle where we say we are going to keep Chromebooks five
years, and we're going to keep laptops five years, and desktops for seven, and replace the
access points every ten years. We do all those things and say all right here are the rules to
play by. I mean, you look at what y'all already have in the school system, and then you
look at your budget, and then you go all right. So, we can keep these for five years, but
these others may need to be six years. That helps you be able to budget long-term for
those devices and besides E-Splost, the other buckets of money I have are like the
teaching learning software budget resides with me and other things like that. Those are all
in my budget, so although I don't decide what we spend, we cut the check. That's the
extent of technology's influence on those programs. Then we have a repair budget and
things that happen that you need funds for.

Question: How have you had an opportunity to impact technology implementation for
some of the schools in the county, and would you provide a specific example?
I want to say I hope so, because coming from a teacher background and being a former
instructional technology specialist and coordinator, I think that helps me understand a
little bit more what's going on at the classroom level. It may be things you never noticed.
For example, this issue at Oconee Primary today, they wanted to fix the intercom first. I
said no, let's plug all the teachers into the network first, then we can do the intercom.
They need the Internet. They need to be able to get to things. It's little decisions like that
that people don't think about. It's the IT staff that work in education that don't understand
at the classroom level. When it comes to purchasing programs, I think it helps to have
that background as well. So, I mean as far as evidence, some of the things we are doing
over the next summer is we are wiring in all the projectors at Rocky Branch Elementary
 because they're the only school that doesn’t have wired projectors. They will be able to
project wirelessly to the projector. That's going to help classroom management and going
to help all sorts of things. That was never done before. I don't know why, and I don't need
to know why, I just need to know that it's standardized across the school system. I think
clearly communicating so people know that, “hey your device is going to be replaced on
this day when it's this old, and you're going to get a new one.” So, people can know to
count on that because teachers don't like surprises. They can plan for it and when it's an
absolute curveball, that's when problems come in.

Question: Yes, I agree 100% that having you formerly in the classroom and understanding
makes a big difference. So, Back-tracking just a little bit, how long were you in the
classroom?
I was in the classroom for a decade. I taught and graduated into the recession. That was
awesome by the way. People were losing a hundred to 1000 jobs a month, and I'm at my
first job. It was at an alternative school, and I was lucky enough to teach middle school
after that at Carrollton Junior High. I was in middle school most of my teaching
experience; 6 through 8th grade history in ELA and I coached wrestling and cross
country.

Question: Oh wow! And then you became an Instructional Technologies specialist?

Yeah, the middle school I was at before I moved into technology. They couldn't afford
1:1, but they could afford class sets. So, I put a proposal together, and we had to apply for
a class set, and I earned it. I kind of got the bug from there.

Question: how long did you serve in that position?

Let's see, I was an instructional technologist for six months. Then we went through
accreditation, and I was one for 10,000 kids. So, it was a little bit bigger system than
Oconee. They rated instructional technology the worst department for accreditation, but
then they turned around and hired four more people and made me the coordinator. I
oversaw those four and worked with district leadership and the College and Career
Academy.
Question: that's great! Let's see, how are technology decisions made as a whole? I know
you've already mentioned that you get the curriculum department involved to make some
of those decisions, buy who's on the committee that makes the final decisions for that?
So, give me an example? Like for a piece of software or device or?

Question: I guess really either one. you could talk about maybe devices. Like you could talk
about whether it would be smart boards, or laptops are Chromebooks or who makes the
decisions basically on how the money is spent?
A perfect example at Rocky Branch is that y'all have a Clear Touch panel that is there. I
work with principles to help them make those decisions. They may ask me what type of
technology we are looking at changing or what should we do? I said, “we are sticking
with Smartboards right now because that's the guidance I've been given right now. I'm
happy to work with you, and here are three brands ABC that you probably need to look
at. But I do know the people that have ‘this’ brand absolutely love it, and I bought the
whole district 1 or 5 or whatever.” So, we've vetted some of that technology for them and
the same thing with software. Software's kind of the scarier animal because we get
requests for apps and software that when we read the privacy and terms of use, they want
to release all of the student data like Facebook and social media and all sorts of things.
So, we've had to deny a higher percentage of software this year than we did my first year.
It's still a small percentage but it's definitely more than just onesies and twosies.

Question: Gotcha! Here's the fun part. What is the best part of your job or what part do
you enjoy the most?
So, I can answer both of those, I hope. One of the reasons I stepped out of the classroom
was you know I enjoy solving problems. I enjoy working with a team of people, and I
wanted something different every day. And don't get me wrong, in teaching, something
different happens every day, especially with middle school students ha-ha, but that
definitely wasn't it. It was the right place for me for 10 years, but then I just felt that it
was time to move on to something different and that's okay. So, sure enough, everyday
sure is different. You don't know when that phone rings if it's you know, “hey you fixed
 that, good job,” or the building is on fire, or something crazy is happening. So that makes
it much more lively and much more interesting. And I'll just say the problems are much
more complex. We're going to be touching about four to five thousand devices this
summer. New teacher devices, pulling out desktops, pulling out old Chromebooks,
pulling out old iPads, and buying new devices. How do we do that when TST is leaving
post planning? How do I do that? When I only have five or six staff that stay in the
summer? So how do we solve the Rubik's cube of technology in order to make it happen?
So that's what I enjoy most, and that’s why I do it.

Question: Yes, that sounds great. I see that it's not quite the extreme of an emergency room
physician, but pretty close ha-ha.
We are firefighters. We are digital firefighters.

Question: that's right! Okay so now what is the most challenging part of your job?
So, do you want this from an IT point of view or director point of view, because that is
two very different points of view?

Question: I guess as the director since you are the director.

So as the director, there are four unique teams as I have already said. It is getting all
those people who literally speak different languages, okay, to speak one language and go
out there and make it seem like one unified vision. And most of the time that is really
really easy to do, but sometimes there's a domino that has to fall on one side, then another
team, and then it just takes time. So that's something that can be hard for people not only
in my department but outside, because the phrase we hear is, we just want it to work.
Well, we want it to work too, but if that first domino doesn't fall, then that 20th will never
get there.

Question: I can definitely see that. The next to the last question is, how have you made
improvements to any organizations throughout your prior roles?
 So, when I interviewed for Oconee, it was actually three rounds of interviews. Dr. Branch
asked me why I wanted this job, and I told him that I wanted to make a difference. I used
to work with Edcamp where basically teachers get together on Saturday. We learn from
each other about Edtech. What we saw is that Edcamp really helped teachers. So, we had
a district wide Edcamp and it created a culture of people willing to present and share, and
honestly, fail forward. I want to bring people together using technology. We do one with
RESA, and there is nothing like learning from a peer.

Question: Do you have any tips or recommendations for someone who is aspiring to be an
Instructional Technology Specialist?
So, the number one thing that I look for in a technologist is can they get along with me
team. And I don’t mean are they smiling and a yes person. I want someone that can come
and have good foundational knowledge. An ITS is a job that the only way to learn it is to
do it. You know, when we onboarded the three ITS a year and a half ago, I mean we can
only take you so far. You have got to learn it on the job. What evidence do you have to be
able to pivot, and think on your feet, and things like that? Those are huge for me when
I'm looking for an ITS, whether it is Microsoft, Apple, or Google, it’s just the same
words for different programs. Just making sure you are an advocate for your teachers. I
meet with the ITS’ weekly, and we have an open round table. What is said in the barn,
stays in the barn. Those are things that I look for in an ITS.

Elma: Thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it.