A reader named Diane left these questions for me on a recent post and I thought I’d answer her here too. I wonder if others should post their experiences on their own blogs … and in more depth than I did here because of time, if that would help others somehow? Just a thought. Here are her questions and my short version answer:
How did you begin your technology journey? I would love to have access to equipment for my students to use, any suggestions on where to go to begin the process?
Hi Diane – I doubt you really want me to go all the way back to my Apple II+ days, and everyone else will be happier if I don’t : ) Most of my experiences have been chronicled here amongst all these posts. But basically I’ve been at the right spot at the right time when, because sadly so few have much experience using technology in education, my very limited experience was enough to make me the go to person. 25 years ago my class got 4 Apple II-E computers because literally in a staff meeting I raised my hand when we were asked if anyone had any experience with them and I said I used one once for a week 3 years before. It’s been like that ever since.
My classes’ 1:1 laptop experience came about because my school was getting new HP laptops and no one else wanted anything to do with our 6 or 7 year old Apple iBooks (or really even the new HP’s which to this day are used rarely by more than 1 or 2 teachers- they use them a lot though) so I explained to my principal at that time that for the price of new batteries ($3000 for 30 batteries) we could have the only 1:1 laptop class in the entire school district of 60,000 students. She had the money and we went from there. Then because we did a few things (blogs and the like) a rare time when there was some money to try out new things, our class was named the school district’s model tech class (they had to designate a classroom because a grant required that). We got an interactive whiteboard, some cameras and a few other pieces AND permission to try things out – that’s the key right there.
It’s a much longer story than that, but that’s the gist of it. Hope that helps.
Learning is messy!
I’d be happier if you went all the way back to the Apple II Plus days! 🙂
I think, in addition to being in the right place at the right time and having slightly more tech experience than others, you also have a quality shared by most go-to tech people. When confronted with something new, you ask, “I wonder what will happen if…” and then you hit the key, or do whatever the “if” is because you just have to know. After contemplating what’s the worst that can happen, I can’t resist jumping in and finding out myself.
My journey started with Apple II and had Logo as a language to study…WOW
Time has passed so fast..
Sam
My name is Michelle French. I’m a student at the University of South Alabama. I enjoyed reading your post. I do not really know much about the history of computers, but I found learning about it interesting. To think that computers have advanced so much in the amount of time they have is amazing. I look forward to more interesting posts. I will be posting a summary of this post and another one of your posts on my blog. The summaries will be up by Sunday, March 6th.