Jan
8
A Highschool Infatuation? An Auto e-ography.
Posted by: flick | January 8, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Thirty-five years ago my boyfriend would disappear each lunch hour to a small room attached to the biology lab. That room housed two computers. My boyfriend (the coolest of the uncool) along with his buddies would “program” the computer to do goodness knows what. They could actually enter information into the computer and hole punched cards would be expelled. I do not recall ever receiving any computer generated love letters but those cards could be used in the creation of spray painted Christmas wreaths.
Then, I went to University. There I lost both the boyfriend and any contact with computers. I graduated with my teaching degree in 1982 never having touched a computer.1987 found me employed by the local school district and teaching grade one. Computers truly entered my life at this point. The school had several in the library. Being a beginning teacher with little financial means, I had to approach the bank to loan me the $1200 plus needed to purchase an Apple II. I remember the excitement for both my husband (not the previous boyfriend), and I when multitudes of boxes arrived containing equipment needing to be “hooked” up and proudly displayed in the living room. So began work sheet creation and limited educational game playing. (Also began my twenty-five year love of Apple products.)
During the next two decades computers were in my school. The computer lab visit was a twice-weekly event in which students played games and learned how to open, create, save and retrieve. During this time e-mail came on scene and every teacher had a computer at their desk and used it to write report cards. I avoided using e-mail for several years but was happy to produce multi-paged report cards.
When the second generation of computer labs arrived THAT’S when everything changed. Why? Now there were extra computers in every classroom (the old lab computers) and it was not long until they were connected to the Internet. There was no turning back. The next years were ones of great learning for my students and I. Technology is best used by my students, not necessarily by their teacher. We have said it often enough it is an everyday tool not an event. I do not need to teach my students how to use the tools (they usually teach me). I do need to give them reason to purposefully use the tools. Will the next shift truly come when all students have access at school and at home? My students were my first technology teachers. When I left the classroom to do district work, I enrolled in MET. My MET instructors and cohort have continued to support my technology learning.