Interview with Darin Davis

Mountain View High School

Ms. Jacob Hi, my name is Gabriella and I'm here with Darin Davis and I'm going to be
interviewing him on his job position at Mountain View High School. Hi, how are you today?
Mr. Davis Good! Hey, I'm Darin Davis. I'm the ITIC Chair at Mountain View and I'll answer what I
can.
Ms. Jacob Perfect. So your title, you went ahead and already shared that with us. What type of
degree is required for your position?
Mr. Davis Well, I'll be honest. I've been doing this about 17 or 18 years when I started.
You just had to be a you had to be a certified teacher with 3 years experience. I'm not sure if
they've changed it so that you need an instructional technology degree or not, but I know a lot of
the new people coming into it do have that.
Ms. Jacob Okay, awesome. Thank you.
Mr. Davis To be honest, I've been doing it so long, I'm not sure anymore.
Ms. Jacob Yeah, well, you know, if it's 3 years teaching experience, then I am good to go.
Mr. Davis I guess.
Ms. Jacob What are your job responsibilities?
Mr. Davis They're all over the place. I work with teachers primarily. I work with software with the
teachers grade books, eClass, Google. I pull a lot of data for the school. We're starting to move
towards Edulastic, I pull a lot of reports on that. I use access databases to pull reports for the
teachers. I mean, for admin. I'm in charge of the website, our 2 newsletters. I don't know. Is that
enough? It changes every day, there's always something new. So it varies, but that's a lot of the
main things anyway.
Ms. Jacob Okay, so a lot of responsibilities, but you don't have a strict schedule that you follow
day to day. It's kind of just what teachers need? Okay!
Mr. Davis Exactly. There are certain things, one newsletter goes out weekly. So I have to have
that done. The other one is bi-weekly. So, you know, I have those due dates, but other than that
it changes every day.
Ms. Jacob Which is probably fun for you, right?
Mr. Davis It is. That's one of the things I like.
Ms. Jacob Yeah, yeah, that sounds good. So do you have any type of remote learning that you
do in a high school.
Mr. Davis At the moment, no. I mean, of course, during COVID we did, but right now everything
is in person. Personally, a lot of my stuff development is remote. But here in the building,
everything's face to face.
Ms. Jacob Okay, perfect. So, do you have digital days, correct? And you support faculty with
students on digital days, but other than that…
Mr. Davis I do, but for the most part, they don't, even on the digital days. They post their stuff
the day before they're supposed to talk to them about it in class the day before.
Ms. Jacob Okay.
Mr. Davis They have like a 30 min office hour time. But that's really it. And they just set up a
Zoom call and put the link out for the kids and they can drop in if they want to.
Ms. Jacob Gotcha. Okay, so, going along with your
Mr. Davis In the, sorry, in high school, not many of them drop in.
Ms. Jacob Gotcha. Yeah, that's understandable. What do you have a type of budget that you
control or do you have anything that you have starting at the beginning of the year that you can
work with.
Mr. Davis I, there is a technology budget myself and the TST share it. I mean, And it's not like
we're given a set amount. We just, when we need things, we go to the principal and generally
she'll approve it. But, there's a budget for some things, toner for printer cartridges, small things
like that. There's not a large budget like for purchasing school wide. You know, all that type of
thing comes from the county. We have a small budget, I guess you could say.
Ms. Jacob Okay, with that, do you have a technology committee or is it just you in the TST that
work together?
Mr. Davis Us and the media specialists and the media clerk, the 3 or 4 of us work together. We
don't have a we don't have a committee per se with teachers on it and that type of thing.
Just the technology, you know, tech team we call ourselves, but media specialist is included.
Ms. Jacob Okay, and so when you have decisions that you want to be made you address the
principal or she or she has given you discretion to kind of implement things.
Mr. Davis It depends on what it is. I mean, certain things we just handle anything major. We will
give her a recommendation. It's up to her to make the final call most of the time.
Ms. Jacob Okay. And she's pretty open with ideas that you guys come up with?
Mr. Davis Yeah
Ms. Jacob That's good, so what do you find to be the best part of your job and what do you find
to be the most challenging part of your job?
Mr. Davis I like working individually with the teachers better than in the classroom. I mean, small
groups are okay, like I like working with course teams versus large groups because when you're
dealing with technology, teachers are the worst students. When you're getting them you know if
you get 20 or more of them in a room they're not gonna pay attention, so I like it when the small
groups, like this past week I've been working with tenth grade language arts and there's 7 of
them (teachers) I think, and working with a group that size is, you know, manageable and, you
know, they're calling you in for a specific reason. So that'd be my favorite part. Then the
teachers can also be my least favorite part. When they want to fuss about things that they know
I have no control over, but I'm used to it. I mean, I've got pretty thick skin. I had one in this
morning venting about the grade book and how quick assign is no good anymore. And they
know I can't control it, but you still just have to kinda smile and try to make them happy and So I
mean, and that's really it, the rest of it's all.
Ms. Jacob Do you do a lot of training outside of school or are you required to do a lot of
professional development within the school?
Mr. Davis Mostly it's within the school day. And I do a fair amount. I have meetings at the
county. We have Teams meetings, different things, but I would say. At least once every other
week there's at least a couple of hours worth of a meeting somewhere, but the majority of it is
online.
Ms. Jacob Gotcha. Well, all that sounds good. Being at 17 years, you must, you know, really
enjoy your job and it sounds fun and I really look forward to shadowing you. That's all I got. Do
you have anything else that you want to share, or say?
Mr. Davis No, I'm good.
Ms. Jacob Alright, well I appreciate your time and I will see you on the 29th.
Mr. Davis See you on the 29th.