Technology Narrative

Grasping My Personal Technological Journey

When I first considered this tech literacy narrative, I could only come up with a couple of examples to include.  After reading Eyman’s, however, it jogged my memory to recognize what I had not even ever really considered part of my technology journey.

One of my greatest joys of elementary school  (I think 2nd grade) was a group of three of us who gained the special privilege of using the computer housed in the nurse’s office  - of all places.  I still have no clue how I ended up on this short list, but I remember vividly making our way down the hall, entering the hallowed space, and literally plugging the handset of an old-school phone into the back rubber input area (like my tech jargon?).  This computer was literally the length of a teacher’s desk, and the keyboard was dwarfed by the box to which it was attached.  Once hearing the dial-up tones and the connection clicking, we collaborated in a world of math problems.  I am sure there was more, but I remember the overall experience of hovering over the “motherboard” and feeling like I had hit some special jackpot.

After that, the closest I got to tech at home was a pong game that we won in a give-away.  Fascinated for about two weeks by the single bars on each side of the screen, my joy was short lived as the family pooch promptly found and then gnawed to death the only “computer” in the house.  That was the end of that.  However, I do remember my love of going to a friend’s house where we played Atari for hours.  Frogger and Donkey Kong were my faves - probably because those were the only games I could handle.

As I shifted to high school, I remember fighting with a typewriter and correction fluid,  only graduating to a word processor in undergrad...and even that was a crude excuse for technology.  During student teaching in 1996, kids had access to the same crappy word processors with huge floppy discs.  

Honestly, this was the extent of my exposure - minus an upgrade to a personal computer - until I was in grad school.  Here, as part of a special grant project led by Sherry Linkon, with whom I had a few working class studies courses, about four other students and I received a laptop; and we embarked on creating websites.  This was where my real technology education began.  She taught us how to create pages with links.  We also embedded pictures and text of our own.  I was able to use the finished project with my early AP students when we were able to gain access to computer labs.  I can’t remember exactly what was there or even how to access it now, but I remember that it had a profound impact on recognizing new ways I could reach students.  While it was very difficult at that point to use such technology given our limited access, it was a starting point from which I have grown quite a bit.  In the past, I also taught an EGCC online American Lit course; here I had to create an entire course from scratch on Blackboard.  Yikes...that was a LOT of time invested for a single semester of teaching.  But it did provide me will new skills I hadn’t learned before. As part of this cohort, I have learned how to embed my own voice into a Powerpoint and also navigated WebEx in two separate courses.

Since all students in the building have their own Chromebook, as part of my daily classroom practices, I use Google Classroom for students to share assignments and for me to share links.  As part of Classroom, I also love Google Forms; it makes it incredibly easy to collect quick info/simple data from my students, NHS members, as well as my department.  I also use Google Presentations or Powerpoint (with links, pics, and video) as part of lecture materials, and my students use it for collaborative as well as independent projects.  Illuminate has also become a reality in our district as we try to find assessment tools that gather and track data for our district OIP goals.  I am still trying to grasp this particular tech product; it takes a lot of time due to its many options and huge databank. I also used to love Twitter as a quick reminder tool and as a means for inspirational quotes and shout-outs. However, our district put an end to that one (but the kids still find me...it’s so crazy).  

The tech tool I am most proud of is my use of Blogger.  Each of my classes has a site with multiple pages, focusing on a particular unit or point of discussion.  This allows me to send students to a MOSTLY organized site where I can keep uploading and editing pages as I see fit. Here they find prompts and links to specialized material.  In addition, and most important, it is a place for the kind of collaboration that we do in this Akron cohort.  They post as we do and respond to other classmates.  I sometimes have formatting issues with Blogger, but it still does the job.

This summer I am also taking a Google course which will acclimate me to other aspects of Google that I can incorporate, such as Google Quizzes and Flubaroo.  And obviously, this course is going to expand my scope as related to what I can accomplish in the classroom; so I am looking forward to the opportunity.  I just hope I can keep up.