Where+I+was,+where+I+am,+Where+I'm+going

Where was I, where am I, and where am I going in my journey with technology? This question takes me back to my Freshman year of college, when I was first required to type a paper on a p.c., print it out, and hand it in. Before that, I had turned in neatly written compositions on loose leaf paper. I remember writing the paper out, taking it to the computer lab, and tearing my hair out when my paper kept disappearing because I didn’t really know how to save, print, or anything else. I had used a computer before, it was an apple 2e with a green screen. We played frogger and lemonade stand on it. That was about all we did. It held a revered place in our household and when we were grounded, we lost the privilege of using it. Fast forward 4 years to Senior year. I had learned how to save and dearly guarded the floppy disks that held my 400 page curriculum project. I knew how to cut and paste, and I no longer wrote on paper at all. My room mate owned her own computer, but most of us lined up at the computer lab to type our papers there. I woke up early to get there ahead of everyone else so I wouldn’t have to wait. I spent many hours and many dollars printing out full color 8” x 12” art examples for my “Saturday School” clinical teaching experiences. I had my students huddle around my laminated copies of famous artworks, squinting to make out the details as I pointed them out. I even owned a huge cell phone after I’d had a late-night run in with an unsavory character on my way home from the ceramics studio. During my second year of teaching High School art, I’d saved up enough money for my own p.c., complete with scanner, color printer, and photoshop. I loved how easy it was to print out the examples I needed for my kids. I printed them on transparencies and showed them to my kids using an overhead projector that smoked for a few minutes when the power was switched on. We didn’t mind opening the window so that the fire alarm didn’t go off. It was better than using the 40 year old slides the art department owned, and it was amazing that they could all see the artwork from their seats! Just 4 years ago, the music teacher and I at Grove begged and pleaded for a smartboard on wheels that we would pilot for the school. We were to share it. The district sent us to smart headquarters in Chicago on St. Patrick’s day and trained us in using our wonderful new toy. We began transferring all of our lessons to smart format and built a schedule for our shared use of the amazing creature that amplified our students learning. Almost immediately, it became apparent that once you’ve taught with the smartboard, the whiteboard paled in comparison. I was given an LCD projector that worked “half the time,” that no one else wanted. I could show my smart presentations like powerpoints even when it wasn’t my turn with the prize. This year, it all went downhill when my laptop began to crash every time I opened the smart software. It was reimaged and worked well for another month before it started to crash again. Back to the whiteboard I went after realizing I had a whole year plus before it was my turn to get a new laptop with more power. I was told I’d burdened my laptop with way too many images and I’d need to start saving my work to an external hard drive. The tech guy didn’t have time to keep re-imaging my pc, and was a little irked that I was creating so many problems. “Why do you need to have 6 applications running at once?” he’d ask. I stopped asking him for help and resolved to buy myself a mac book with summer school money. Meanwhile, I was back to the whiteboard with my new-found white board crayons. Actually, they’re pretty cool. The kids are so used to the smart board now that they actually appreciate my crayons too. I’ve been so preoccupied with the amazing smartboard that I have failed to explore all of the other educational uses of technology available to my students and myself. Digital stories, which I need a lot of work with in order to gain proficiency, offer a wealth of opportunities to improve my art instruction. The wiki will be a great place to hold the content of my school website, which is deleted by the district every couple years as they upgrade their systems. Web-quests will be wonderful for my students in a year or two when I have full access to laptops in art. I have convinced my principal to allow me to look into obtaining the smartboard software for a macbook I’ll buy myself, replacing the crashable p.c. I work with now. And finally, I’ll have the use of a smartboard that will reliably work every day of this upcoming school year. I have a long way to go, but I have definitely begun to scratch the surface in determining which direction I should set off on. Before taking this Technology class, I didn’t even really know what I was missing. This new learning is just a springboard which will take me much further than if I’d remained contented with my smart software. I have already signed up for District 220-sponsored technology classes to further this exploration, and I am excited about the opportunities I can offer my students in the future.