Susan Bordewyk, Director of Technology
Susan Bordewyk is the director of technology at Forest Hills Public Schools. She provides leadership for a wide variety of projects throughout the district, including infrastructure, devices, and workstations. She also helps develop plans on how to support instruction with new tools and resources. Learn how Susan contributes to technology adoption across the district below.
What are some of the challenges you face in your current role?
Long gone are the days when we had technology structured as an independent lesson, like we have art and physical education. We can work with technology anywhere now; the front of the classroom can be anywhere. One of the challenges that goes along with that is the speed at which technology travels. We used to be able to have computers that lasted 5 or more years in schools, now we have a new device every year. How can we leverage that to translate learning to anytime, anywhere, any device? It’s about finding the right device and the right resource to match the learning.
How do you go about getting teachers to use technology and getting them comfortable with it?
One of the things we've done in our district is allowed the opportunity for teachers to try various technologies and planning tools in small pilot groups. In pilot groups, we specifically look at how students will be using the technology in the classroom as opposed to how the teacher will use this to present information. We want to meet the needs of both teacher and student, but we want to find out what specific things will reach students and positively impact the class.
Why are schools interested in putting technology in the hands of the kids?
Individuals all learn in different ways. We can group them into different categories, but I think we limit some students by not providing the opportunity or experience to use technology.
If you were to give one tip to educators on how to be successful with video, what would you tell them?
My one tip for those who are afraid to start using videos would be to start small. I know if I’m making a video that is five minutes long, I get jittery and I might give up. Start with 30 seconds. Pick an easy, simple topic that you know about and see what you can do with that. You will find out, right away, it's not enough time.