Field Supervisor, Mrs.

Tracy Sessions, Interview Transcript

Interviewer: All right, we are good to go. If you could just give us a brief introduction of who you
are and what your current position is.

Sessions: My name is Tracy Sessions. I’m the media specialist here at Crawford County Middle
School. I am part-time because this building does not earn a full time media specialist.

Sessions: My background is media, early childhood, and technology.

Interviewer: So, what specific degree do you have for your position?

Sessions: Um, I have a masters in media. I have an undergraduate in early childhood, and I’ve
got eight years in building and system level technology as a technology specialist slash director.
And, I’ve been in and out of technology. Um, mostly in media since then and I still do, you know,
some technology when there’s need and when I can help. Technology changes. That is one
reasons I got out. It’s just hard to keep up. It is even more so right now that everything is
changing.

Interviewer: Could you give us a brief overlook of your job responsibilities. So, what do you do
for us at the school?

Sessions: Mainly right now, for Crawford all I do is media stuff. Library collection development,
purchasing, weeding. I don’t do a lot of assisting with classes because I am not asked
necessarily to do a lot of assisting with classes. One of the main task that I’ve got to work on
and work toward is getting the collection ready to move. The middle school will move into a new
facility next year, so I’ve got to, you know, weed and get the collection ready to move. Perhaps
remove and inventoried and whatnot.

Interviewer: Yeah, that is a lot. I remember helping you get started with that last semester.

Interviewer: So, are you in any way helping our students with the remote learning? And, I know
we’re not doing full on remote learning for everyone, but for our quarantined kids, which we
have had a lot come in and out, have you, um, assisted any of the students or teachers with
that?

Sessions: My main task with that has been with troubleshooting. Troubleshooting login issues,
software issues. They don’t have access, or they don’t have the right access, or they can’t
upload a file, download the file to complete that type of thing. And it’s largely, you know, just
walking them through. You know, either it’s there and they don’t see it or, you know, they’re
Googling their login instead of going to the link that we’ve provided them so they’re trying to log
into a different system and ours is that’s usually the issue. Um, most of the time they’re quick
fixes. Sometimes I have to communicate with either Mr. Wilson, the technology director, or the
software company.
Interviewer: Um, I know that we are stil working towards one-to-one technology this year. Have
you been able to assist and help with that at all?

Sessions: We are working toward that. There really isn’t anything to do right now because the
devices, I believe, they’re supposed to be on order, but they are not here. There’s not a lot to do
wight now as far as I understand. But, when they come in, getting them ready to roll out will be a
part of what I will do. I’m sure. Um, we are having a meeting tomorrow. The media specialist
and the technology director about just kind of getting an idea. Um, we sent out a form asking for
feedback from the teachers. What’s your expectation with these one-to-one devices so we;re
going to look over that and just kind of go from there. We don’t have a plan in place. We are
going to prepare, try to prepare something in place for one-to-one rollout.

Interviewer: My next question is, um, do you have a budget that you control. Probably more
towards selecting like technology resources. Are you a part of that decision making process?

Sessions: Not with technology, no. A lot of like teacher desktop technology, Mr. Wilson gets
those for free. All he has to fo is pick them up. He usually gets them from government agencies
when they donate or replace their devices. When they are repurposing or deploying new
devices then he’s on the list and they, you know, contact him and say we’ve got a hundred. Do
you want them? And if he wants them, he’ll go get them. But, our chromebooks are the
exception and, um, the interactive boards. Those are new purchases

Interviewer: As far as technology programs that we use, have you had an opportunity to impact
any sort of implementation for those throughout the school where maybe you might help a
teacher, you know, use it or steer them in the right direction for implementing it in their
classroom.

Sessions: Not so much teachers, as I worked with students last year. When we working within
Edgenuity, when we were online, or had the virtual option, it was mainly with Edgenuity and
dealing with students and talking them through either via email or the phone, online or with the
student and or the parent. Helping them work through their issues. Y’all as teachers in this
building are very good about going to each other and helping each other more so than me. Um,
with me not being a teacher, a lot of times, I don’t know. You know my admin access like in
Edgenuity looks very different than your teacher access, so um, I’m not necessarily the best go-
to person unless I have already interacted with the program. I have some history with the
program USA Test Prep, so, um, I know that program better, but my login access is very
different than what you’ll see when you log into USA Test Pep because I have an administrator
role instead of a teacher role, so unless its been where I’ve either had to create myself as a
teacher so that I know the look and I can talk you through the program. I don’t do that as much
with teachers as I do students. Mainly with Edgenuity. I can’t think of anything else besides my
Destiny program but that is outside of instructional tech.

Interviewer: Allright, I don’t know if we do, but does our school or does the county have a
technology committee?
Sessions: Um, the media specialist we call ourselves. We are supposed to have student and
parent input. I don’t know. I have never identified a specific parent or student. You know a
teacher was supposed to have stakeholders from everyone. There has never been an identified
group. We three media specialists kind of are the technology, I guess, committee so to speak.

Interviewer: I mean, that is, that’s how it uses a lot of schools. Because, I mean, that’s why
most of us in my program are using their media specialist for this because a lot of schools don’t
have, they just don’t have a specific technology person. Especially in smaller schools.

Interviewer: All right, this is a nice question. What is the best part of your job Mrs. Sessions.
What do you enjoy the most?

Sessions: I really enjoy helping. I like it when, when a student says “I can’t figure this out.”
Or even if it’s searching something, if it’s finding a book, would. I like helping people and
students and teachers figure things out. I like teaching the, how to use something.I like teaching
them so they can, you know, be an independent user of whatever technology they need. I enjoy
helping people. I loved back when I was in technology, we had the old integrate pro that was our
first piece of software with the gradebook program. I enjoyed one-on-one teacher teaching.
Teaching them how to use that and showing them once they, you know, got the basics down
then coming back with them after two or three weeks and saying, “Okay, let’s look at this report,
or let’s look and see.” I enjoyed doing that. But, anything that helps someone make whatever
they’re trying to do easier, I like doing that. I just like helping.

Interviewer: Yeah, I have going on there are seen you helping the kids look up pictures for their
projects and, you know, making it easier for them. Sometimes they’re a little misdirected when
they Google things. I think I remember a couple years ago you helped the teachers set up their
website pages.

Sessions: Again, y’all helped each other with that more than me, but yes, I did help a few
teachers, a handful of teachers, who came to me and helped with that. But ya’ll are great
helpers for each other and that’s wonderful.

Interviewer: My last question is what do you find to be the most challenging part of your job. I
know it’s probably gotten a little more difficult the past two years with everything just being so
unconventional.

Sessions: I’m not really sure. I, I don’t know how to answer that one. Probably, I would sat
student access to technology. We had a new student come in today, and she just enrolled. She
was immediately put on quarantine. So, shes asking me how to access everything on my
phone. Saying she has to her assignments on her phone. So the most challenging and the most
frustrating part for me is being in a rural district that doesn’t have accessible internet. Um, our
kids are at a disadvantage and accessible internet doesn’t mean phone access. I mean that’s
not accessible internet as far as school is concenter. So, that is probably the most challenging.
part. I know that we are working to change that and I hope it does change soon, but right now, I
think that would be, that would be the thing there's nothing I can do about it. I think I have the
same concerns that everybody has.

Interviewer: Um, I really appreciate your time for this.

Sessions: I hope I was a little bit of help anyway.

Interviewer: You really were. You really were.