Taft Charter High School 2

Andrea Gazzi interviews Aaron Haston, the technology coordinator at Taft-Charter High School. They discuss the district's technology plan, which was focused on integrating technology into the classroom and supporting teaching and learning. They also talk about the collaboration between the teacher-librarian and IT personnel in meeting the needs of students and staff. Aaron mentions that libraries are becoming the future with the use of digital resources and technology. He suggests that the teacher-librarian can learn more about the technical aspects of the network, hardware, and software through resources provided by LAUSD ITS. Aaron also mentions the members of the technology committee and their role in assessing and improving technology on campus. Hi, this is Andrea Gazzi and I'm here with... This is Aaron Haston, I'm the technology coordinator at Taft-Charter High School. Taft is part of the Los Angeles Unified School District. So, what is your knowledge of the district's technology plan? Wow, you're taking me back to when I first started teaching in 2005. Early 2000s, many of the districts started creating technology plans pretty much to integrate technology into the classroom. They pretty much focused on the current status of technology, which in the early 2000s was very, very limited. They also focused pretty much on having technology to support teaching and learning in the classroom. Also, in the support of creating assessments, and also numerous other tools, including professional development. But as a formal technology plan, we really haven't seen much of that in this district since 2009. Everything's been frameworks and other planning, especially with what went down with COVID. Thank you. So, how can the teacher-librarian and IT personnel collaborate to meet the needs of students and staff? Well, when you look at what libraries are becoming, libraries are pretty much becoming the future. The future's actually happening today. When you talk about artificial intelligence, when you talk about all the digital resources that librarians and students use on a daily basis, when you talk about the targeted discovery and searches that take place, there's so many resources that could be used from a technology standpoint, where the teacher-librarian and IT pretty much collaborate on a daily if not weekly basis. So, as it pertains to collaboration, it's huge. It's massive. All right. So, how can I, the teacher-librarian, learn more about technical aspects of our network, hardware, and software? There are so many resources available. LAUSD ITS, pretty much LAUSD's Information Technology Service, has so many resources available as it pertains to network, the capabilities of the network, technology that we have on campus. There's so many PDFs and tutorials available. So, these are great resources that are available. Great. So, do we have a technology committee, and if so, who is on it, and what do they do? So, we have right now a five-member technology committee. We have myself, the technology coordinator. We have our assistant principal that oversees technology, Mr. Loza. We have, of course, our principal that's on there, Daniel Steiner. We also have our IT support technician, Shane Charters. In addition, we also have one of our ASB students that also assists us as well on our technology committee. What do we do? We pretty much look at the technology on the campus, pretty much how we can benefit the community as a whole from administrators to students and teachers as well. Great. Thank you so much for your time and information.