My

Interview an Instructional Technology Professional

By

Kevin L. Fowler

IT595 | October 10, 2012 | 1:00PM
Word Count: 1595

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Interview Questions



1) What is your name and job title?
2) Please give me an overview of your entire professional career.
3) What did instructional technology look like when you first began?
4) What is your personal definition of an instructional technologist?
5) How vital is it that your employer have an instructional technologist on staff?
Tell me how your role may not be easily replaced by a mere IT or faculty
member.
6) On an informal scale of 1-101 being a member of the Amish community
and 10 being Steve Jobswhere do you rank yourself technologically?
7) What are the current trends in your career field? What are you and
counterparts discussing across the state?
8) What are some great instructional technology tools that you and your team
are using?
9) What are the current concerns, vulnerabilities, and/or obstacles in your
field?
10) What is your career advice for future instructional technologists?
11)Can you describe a great day at work as an instructional technologist?
12)Can you describe a not so great day at work as an instructional technologist?

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This assignment led me to the offices of Dr. Eric Brown. Dr. Brown is the
Assistant Dean of Online Instruction and leads the Instructional Design Team at one
of the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) largest community colleges. Dr. Browns
duties consist of leading the team that oversees and trains fulltime and adjunct
faculty on the institutions learning management system (LMS), researching and
standardizing new institutional classroom delivery tools and processes, and chairs
both the Virtual Learning and Mobilization subcommittees.

Dr. Brown considers himself an educator first, and a technologist second. He

has been in a traditional or virtual classroom his entire professional career. After
graduating the University of Tennessee in 1974, Dr. Brown taught secondary
English at a local Knoxville high school. Eight years later, Dr. Brown started his
doctorate in English and began adjunct work at the institution he is currently
employed.

Over the past quarter century, Dr. Browns roles have greatly evolved at this

institution. Twenty-six years ago when he was the low man on the totem pole, Dr.
Brown traded off with another colleague for the most undesired special projects
that came to their division. In the mid-90s, the (then) Dean of Evening and Distance
Education (who would eventually rise to be the institutions current President)
approached Dr. Brown on the idea of having freshman Composition I and II as an
online course. Given that it was his turn to volunteer for the undesired special
project, without hesitation Dr. Brown said to his supervisor, Sure, Ill do an online
coursewhats an online course?

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When Dr. Brown began teaching this course, it was much different than it is

today. Dr. Brown had two tools to teach his Comp I and II courses the equivalent
of an HTML file, and a distribution list filled with his students e-mail addresses.
(Addresses, Dr. Brown laughingly recalls, were provided by the now folksy
Hotmail, Yahoo!, and Juno.) Whereas the definitions were a little more lax back then,
Dr. Brown was technically teaching the equivalent of a hybrid class as he had his
(predominantly very local) students coming to campus the beginning, middle, and
the end of a semester.

Much has changed since the mid-90s. Today, Dr. Brown is informally

considered by many as the godfather of online education for the State of

Tennessee. Dr. Brown played a vital role in the development of what would soon
become the Regents Online Campus Collaborativea statewide higher education
operation whose mission would be to increase access to higher education for non-
traditional learners, support the delivery of high-quality instruction by promoting
the effective use of technology, provide learners access to online courses and
degree programs, especially in remote areas, and provide a channel for TBR
institutions to leverage resources to broaden, enhance and support educational
opportunities(Mission & Purpose, 2010).

When asked to define the field of instructional technology, Dr. Brown refers

to it simply as the principles of teaching and learning as applied through

technology. Though, as mentioned earlier, Dr. Brown only hesitantly accepts the
mantle of technologist. He believes that technology is only one tool in the belt of an
instructional designer. In fact, he considers himself as a two or three when forced

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to place his technological knowhow on an informal scale of 1 to 10one being a
member of the Amish community and ten being Steve Jobs.
When asked how vital it is for his employers to employ an instructional
technologist, Dr. Brown became quite animated. He adamantly believes that a mere
faculty member or IT guy cannot fill this role. He explains further that a faculty
member at state institutions only show up with 18 graduate school hours in their
field and oftentimes zero experience when it comes to principles of learning and
teaching; the IT employee, similarly, often brings this same deficit as well as
ignorance to the needs of a classroom.
So what does the ideal instructional technologist look like in Dr. Browns
view? According to him an instructional technologist must have street cred. Not
only does an instructional technologist need to know the LMS, or the software they
are supporting, he thinks it is crucial they do their time in a classroom to gain
these principles of learning and teaching. Dr. Brown agreed with the analogy that
anything different would be like being trained in Microsoft Excel by someone who
has never used the software to balance his or her checkbook. Dr. Brown believes
that it is an exciting time to enter this emerging field. As instructional technology is
partially defined by Reiser and Dempsey as (2012) [encompassing] the analysis of
learning and performance problems, Dr. Brown believes one needs to have the
experience to know of these learning and performance problems in the first place.
Dr. Brown lamented at the informality and the unspecified role of
instructional technologists at the statewide level. He agreed that if one visited the
states campuses and asked for the instructional

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technologists/facilitators/designers to step forward, no one would. Yet, if he
described what each of these roles accomplishes, there would be individuals in the
field stepping up. It is because of this lack of formal recognition that there are no
peer cohorts in the larger TBR system to engage for professional development. This
oftentimes makes Dr. Brown (and his team) feel alone. He believes that this is an
area desperate for change.
Dr. Brown was then asked about the common obstacles that he comes across
in his line of work. After it was presumed by the interviewer that his greatest
obstacle must be low trainee turnout, he argued that it goes much deeper than this.
He believes his greatest challenge is to convince faculty at his institution to critically
analyze their teaching and to consider where there is room for improvement. He
lamented that it is very difficult to ignite a creative spark that will bring faculty to
think, Hey, I bet this will be very useful in my classroom!
Dr. Brown pushes faculty to see the Off-label uses for these products. To
illustrate his point, he uses Apple TV as an example. Though it is true that the
products AirPlay feature is originally intended to be used in the home theater to
wirelessly project games, photos, and apps on the home television, Dr. Brown
encourages faculty to look deeper and see this as a vehicle for students to easily
share and showcase their work from their mobile devices. Dr. Brown fights for
others to think of these off-label uses and to push the envelope on instructional
design.
All things considered, Dr. Browns number one priority is to make the boss
happy and to keep the plates spinning. Dr. Brown stated that his job primarily

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consists of preemptively creating a solution for a problem that has yet to arise. This
makes his career very unpredictable. When I, the interviewer, asked Dr. Brown to
describe both a good and a not-so-good day as an instructional technologist, he had
difficulty formulating an answer as he hasnt had a normal day to compare the
others.
After interviewing Dr. Brown, I saw a man who challenged the mold of an
instructional technologist; he cannot install RAM into his computer, can barely
troubleshoot the machine; but he can use this same computer to teach and to teach
well. I had the pleasure of speaking with one of his previous students (who now
happens to be interning under Dr. Brown for his doctoral internship.) The former
student said that Dr. Brown is the type of teacher that you could drop into a jungle
and command build a classroom and return days later to find that this teacher has
scavenged the jungles to find artifacts and lesson plans ready to go. Dr. Browns tool
in the western hemisphere in the 21st century just happens to be a computer.
After sitting down with Dr. Brown, it is evident that a wealth of professional
development is before me. As a firm believer in the proverb that those who walk
with the wise will grow wise, it is wonderful to know that this ally is more than
willing to share his struggles and triumphs and believes in the importance of
advancing this emerging field. Though, it does surprise me that within the sixth
largest higher education institution in the United States there does not exist an
instructional technology consortium for collaboration, comradery, and professional
development. Dr. Brown and I began speaking about the tangible opportunity that
exists in the creation of an instructional technology consortium.

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References


1
Brown, E. (2012, October 10). Interview by K.L. Fowler [Audio Tape Recording].
Instructional technology interview.
Mission & purpose. (2010, October 30). Retrieved from
http://www.rodp.org/home/mission-purpose
Reiser, R., & Dempsey, J. V. (2013). Trends and issues in instructional design and

technology. (p. 406 *Kindle version). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

1 A pseudonym was supplied to protect the privacy of the interviewee.