Last summer I had the opportunity to be a part of our interview committee to select a high school history teacher for the small charter school I teach at. After a set of first interviews, we asked a few of them to come back and present a lesson, as we were “students” for the class.

Of the few that we had back two candidates sort of stuck out, and for entirely different reasons. The first, presented a Holocaust lesson that incorporated many different types of technology, including a well-made visual presentation that we followed as he instructed. However, (and not that we make a fully accurate and fair judgment of someone based on two interviews) he appeared to lack the skills of connecting with people, and most likely students, even though you could tell he would be a teacher that would try to incorporate technology in many of his lessons.

The second candidate, under some strange circumstance, had what we would consider little or no use of technology in his lesson. He and his wife were living in North Carolina and both had interviews in Michigan during the same week. As they made the trip to Michigan they met up and stayed with family as they were camping, so after the first interview and as the unexpected offer to come back the next day and teach a lesson to us, he was pretty much had a tent to go back to and prepare.

With that being said, he gave a fantastic lesson. He was extremely interactive, and we had the sense that he was passionate about teaching, as well as building positive relationships.

I felt like the second candidate had a great lesson because he worked hard to prepare and was genuine in his teaching. The first candidate also worked hard, but it was as if he relied on the technology to do the teaching for him.

If you can captivate a classroom of students without all the bells and whistles of technology, I can’t imagine what you could do by implementing technology in your instruction.