The event that I am choosing to write about is a physics software\/hardware package that the science department at a previous school purchased for me approximately 12 years ago.\u00a0 A sales representative for an educational supply company came to the school and did a presentation on the package for myself and a few of the other science teachers.\u00a0 The package included a number of gadgets and graphing software that were supposed to be interactive and give the student immediate feedback on how the graph related to the motion of an object.\u00a0 The package cost between $1000 and $1200 and I was the only physics teacher in the school at the time.<\/p>\n
I chose this experience because the package never got used \u2013 not once.\u00a0 In retrospect, I believe it was purchased for the following reasons:<\/p>\n
The package was never used for the following reasons:<\/p>\n
$1000 – $1200 worth of technology sat on a shelf and was never used.\u00a0 Every time I looked at it I felt guilty and incompetent, so I moved it out of view and eventually it became obsolete and disappeared.<\/p>\n
This experience is a critical event in my history because it was a motivating factor in the start of my journey to incorporate technology into my classroom.\u00a0 It bothered me that it had never been used and I wanted to used technology but did not have the time or energy to figure out what worked and what did not on my own.\u00a0 The pursuit of that information led me to the MET program.<\/p>\n
The experience (or lack of it) with the physics package also taught me a number of things.\u00a0 For example, having technology without the support or knowledge to implement it is useless, having someone who is keen on technology purchase it (without support) for someone who is not does not improve the situation, that money spent on technology without forethought and planning is often wasted.\u00a0 And that some sales reps are very good at their jobs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The event that I am choosing to write about is a physics software\/hardware package that the science department at a previous school purchased for me approximately 12 years ago.\u00a0 A sales representative for an educational supply company came to the … Continue reading