Reina Bejerano CTO Mentor Candidate 

Curriculum & Instruction Interview Questions 

Educational Technology-Final Artifact 

Interviewed  

Dr. Tom McCoy, Assistant Superintendent, Educational Services  

Dr. Terri Leon, Director, Instructional Support Services 

 

1. How do we ensure technology integration is happening in our district? 

Technology Integration starts with how we decide how to prioritize our budget around 
technology so that gives us the biggest impact in the classroom. In the past, we would 
buy technology because it was the latest and greatest or the industry standard, but now 
technology integration starts with what is most impactful in the classroom and how do 
we organize our resources? We are now in the mindset that we work up the scale rather 
than working from the district level down to the classroom. Low cost, high use is our 
goal because if we don’t get use, we are not integrated no matter what our plan says.  

2. Is technology integration one of our district's goals? Is it specifically mentioned in 

our LCAP plan? 

Technology Integration is one of Oxnard Union High School District’s goals and it is 
specifically mentioned. Under Goal 2 Instructional Materials and Educational 
Technology-In an environment of high expectations with support, the Oxnard Union 
High School District will identify and effectively implement standards aligned materials 
and educational technology that support high school graduation, as well as college and 
career readiness for ALL students. 

Technology Integration is listed as  

2-1-1 Provide standards aligned instructional materials and technology to support 

updating of courses to meet the California Standards and the design and 
implementation of new courses. Provide instructional materials and technology to 
support tutoring and other academic enrichment activities 

2-2-1 Identify and effectively implement instructionally relevant educational 

technology in support of high school graduation as well as college and career readiness 
2-6-1 Provide effective implementation of educational technology through the daily, 
weekly, and monthly training provided by the Coordinator of Educational Technology, 
Learning Design Coach – Technology, and Site Tech Coaches 

3. Do we hold anyone (teachers, site admin) accountable for technology integration and 
meeting the digital literacy standards in the Common Core State Standards for ELA in 
our district? If so, is it a part of goal setting or evaluation? 

There is no specific accountability for any standards. We are trying to formalize the 
Digital Literacy curriculum into the high school graduation requirements as a 
proficiency. There will be the understanding that students need to have particular 
Digital Literacy skills which will be an interesting system discussion, because we will 
begin the conversations that will shift the culture. Our current Digital Literacy standard 
is that you need to know Microsoft Office to be proficient and our potential Digital 
Literacy curriculum will be that you have to know how to use social media positively. 
This is a huge leap. We are literally going from the year 2000 to the year 2020 in the 
blink of an eye. The accountability around Digital Literacy becomes natural if it 
becomes embedded in the graduation proficiency, because we are all held accountable 
for helping students meet the graduation requirement.  

If we go into an ELA adoption, part of the push will be how the publishers integrate it 
into their materials. That will determine how we determine the accountability piece for 
ELA specifically. If we are being intentional about providing teachers with classroom 
based staff development where technology is complementary to instruction rather than 
a replacement for instruction, some of that is going to come together on its own so we 
are building the infrastructure around how we use technology through instruction 
instead of to instruct and that’s the big shift for the system. That’s the same shift you 
see in the policy, that’s when instruction and Digital Literacy are separated because 
computers and teaching are separated. They have different functions, so as you bring 
teaching together with technology and they are integrated, then on the natural, 
because you are using Twitter as part of a classroom assignment, you are going to talk 
about the appropriate use of social media in the context of your classroom, not just 
what you do after school and before school and at lunch or nutrition. That’s the shift.  
 

4. Do we have anything in our educator and administrator hiring process to ensure 

some past experience with technology integration in a classroom or as a site culture? 

The teacher and classified folks have to do with the Principal’s approach and that 
Depth of Knowledge we just discussed in the previous question. In his experience, we 
used to ask a teacher what they would do to teach students and they would answer that 
they might use a powerpoint. In about 2012-2013, we began to tell us about technology 
integration rather than there being one question about technology integration. There 
would be 5 candidates and 2 would be fully integrated with tech and the other 3 that 
were not and naturally we hired the ones that utilized more technology integration. We 
are still very much on the outside when it comes to asking administrators. Those who 
came ready, started to drive the school/district discussions on what we needed and why 
we needed it in order to create that integration. At the administrator level, unless it’s a 
position specific to technology we are still very much on the outside when it comes to 
asking our administrators during the interview process how the integrate technology 
into their process though we have some who can really support the work while others 
are still struggling and learn it as they go. 

5. Do we design our own curriculum guides or lesson pacing? I have an assignment 

where I need to meet with our curriculum developers so I can modify some lessons to 
have different levels of technology integration. If not, may I please borrow a current 
ELA textbook. 

We do currently design our own curriculum and pacing guides. Director of Instructional 
Support Services is tasked in leading that work alongside our Learning Design Coaches 
and Department Chairs. These individuals meet to plan and update these guides to 
reflect current and relevant information.