Running head: SOCIAL MEDIA INTERVIEW 1

Social Media Interview with Mrs. Kristi Bower

Samantha J. Ellis

Concordia University, Nebraska

Author Note

Samantha J. Ellis, Department of Early Childhood Education, Concordia University,

Nebraska.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Samantha J. Ellis, 619 W 7th

Street, York, NE 68467. Contact: samantha.ellis@cune.org.

SOCIAL MEDIA INTERVIEW 2

Social Media Interview with Mrs. Kristi Bower

On Thursday, July 30, 2020, I conducted an interview with social media-user, Mrs. Kristi

Bower. Mrs. Bower is the director of Mount Olive Lutheran Early Childhood Education Center

in Aurora, CO. Mrs. Bower was the first student to graduate from Concordia University, Irvine,

with a degree in early childhood education, and she has now been in the field for over twenty-six

years. From speaking with Mrs. Bower, I could see that she had a strong passion for helping

educate our youngest generations, and I hope that someday I can help other future educators and

share my passion with them. I look forward to staying in contact and collaborating with her as I

work to become an early childhood educator as well. In this essay, I will discuss why I wanted to

conduct the interview with Mrs. Kristi Bower, the questions I had about social media and

technology usage in the classroom, how Mrs. Bower answered my questions, and what I learned

from this interview.

As a future early childhood educator, I wanted to conduct an interview a fellow early

childhood educator in order to learn more about how I could incorporate technology and/or

social media into my future classroom. Through a Facebook group that I joined, Early Childhood

Educators, I connected with Mrs. Kristi Bower after discovering that she was an early childhood

educator and director, and she was also an alumni of the Concordia University system. Because

of this, I felt like our views and goals would align very well, so I decided to reach out to her to

see if I could ask her some questions about technology and social media in the early childhood

classroom. I was felt very grateful that she was willing to take the time to meet with me and

answer the questions that I had so I can use this information as I make preparations for my own

future early childhood classroom.

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In my interview with Mrs. Kristi Bower, I asked her ten different questions about her

opinion of technology and social media usage in the early childhood classroom. I began by

asking about her views in regards to using social media or technology in the classroom and how

large of a role they played in her classroom. Then, I asked Mrs. Bower if there were any forms of

social media or technology that she really liked using or did not like using at all at her school. I

also asked her if she believed using social media or technology improved the way she shared

information with students and parents and how she thought her students viewed using social

media and/or technology in the classroom. Since technology and social media is so new, yet

becoming so popular, I asked Mrs. Bower about the challenges she, or her fellow educators, have

had while incorporating them into the classroom and how they have helped their students adapt

and learn how to use new forms of social media and/or technology. In addition, I asked Mrs.

Bower about the different types of devices that were available to students and teachers to use and

how she planned to keep students safe while using them. Lastly, I asked Mrs. Bower if there

were any forms of technology or social media that she had yet to try using, but hoped to use in

the upcoming school year, provided her students and teachers can return to school this year

amongst the Coronavirus pandemic.

As I asked Mrs. Kristi Bower my questions, she provided some excellent and informative

answers for me. Although she used technology to teach her students remotely during the

Coronavirus pandemic, she does not typically like to use it much within the classroom because

she believes that “students get enough screen time” at home. However, she does like to use

Facebook, Instagram, and Brightwheel, an app that allows teachers to share children’s activities

(meals, naps, diapers, etc.) with parents, to communicate with parents and keep them updated

about their children and activities that may be going on at the school. While she does not believe
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that using technology or social media improves the way teachers teach, Mrs. Bower does believe

that they do improve the way teachers share information with parents. The most challenging part

of incorporating technology, especially with the pandemic, was teaching the educators how to

use the new forms of technology, such as Zoom and Facebook Live, and helping them to feel

comfortable using these new programs. Even though it was important to Mrs. Bower to continue

having her educators teach their students remotely, she does not believe they fully understood

what was happening; they may have realized their parents were taking their picture or helping

them with a Zoom meeting, but they did not fully understand how much technology was helping

them to learn during this time. Since they were at home, Mrs. Bower left the safety of using

technology up to the parents, as there was not very much that she could do to protect them when

they were at home. While there are no new forms of technology or social media that she plans to

incorporate into her school, Mrs. Bower does plan to continue using tablets and televisions

occasionally to play dance songs and videos on YouTube to allow her students to have fun, be

silly, and get their wiggles out.

I am very glad that I had the opportunity to connect with and interview Mrs. Kristi Bower

because she helped me learn different viewpoints about using technology and social media in the

classroom. Since children in early childhood classrooms are so young, I was having a difficult

time thinking about how I could use technology to improve their learning or if I should even try

using it with them at such an early age. Like Mrs. Bower discussed, I think technology and/or

social media can help improve communication between teachers and parents, especially when

they join private Facebook groups or use the Brightwheel app. However, even though young

children may not fully understand how technology helps them learn, I still believe there is a lot

of opportunities for learning that can be provided by incorporating technology into my

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classroom. I have had the opportunity to learn about numerous forms of technology that I can use

to help my students learn, and I plan to use nearly all of them, even with my very young students.

Simple technology use, such as watching educational videos or dance songs on YouTube, can

make a significant difference in the amount of knowledge young children absorb, as they are

more motivated to learn if they are doing so in interesting and interactive ways. While I can

respect the viewpoints of Mrs. Bower about technology and social media usage in the early

childhood classroom, my viewpoints are different, and I plan to use as many digital resources as

I can to help my students grow and learn.

In conclusion, my interview with Mrs. Kristi Bower was more helpful than I could have

imagined; she was very kind and open in answering my questions and sharing her viewpoints

about using technology and social media in the classrooms at her school. While we may have

different opinions about using these resources to help young students learn, we do have the same

overall goal: to help our young students by creating the best environments for them to grow and

learn. I plan to continue collaborating and stay in contact with Mrs. Bower as I work to become

an early childhood educator so that we can share ideas about how to make improvements in our

classrooms to better meet the individual needs of our young students.

SOCIAL MEDIA INTERVIEW 6

Reference

Facebook Account Information: Kristi Nuoffer Bower