I was thinking today about how my classroom has changed since I was hired in my current job 19 years ago. At the time, I had 12 electronic Panasonic typewriters and 12 IBM PS2 Model 25 computers in my business lab. The computers had dual 3 1/2" floppy drives and no hard drive. It was all about DOS, black and white monitors, text, no graphics, no need for a mouse, no sound, the Internet was unheard of, computer networking in schools was an administrator's nightmare, and my students printed from boxes of tractor-fed paper.Our software was Microsoft Works 1.05 which my students ran from one floppy disk in the A: drive and they saved data to the floppy in the B: drive. I also taught BASIC programming. And the funny thing is...we were advanced! Little schools like ours in Montana were struggling to come up with money to buy computers; after all, computers were a luxury, and not really a necessity, right? All you had to do was ask your adminstrator or long-time school board member, and they'd tell you, right? Wow, how things have changed. I've seen more computer models come and go and learned and taught more software packages in the last 19 years than I can remember. My daughters find it hard to believe that when I was in college, you had to rent a VCR and lug it home in a big case to watch your rented movies on VHS or Beta. "What?!?! You couldn't BUY movies back then, Mom? That's so lame."
Technology has changed at warp speed and I'm feeling lucky that I get to be an educator at a time when we have so much teaching and learning power at our fingertips!
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This past school year I was lucky enough to get a SmartBoard mounted in my room! Before having the SmartBoard, I used an overhead projector, dry-erase board, and an AverKey daily. Now I can use the SmartBoard in place of all of those things! I really strive to use the SmartBoard as an interactive component with my students intstead as a mere whiteboard or projector. Interactive lessons engage and motivate my students in their learning and that's my goal. Who would've thought teachers and students would be able to touch a large screen hooked to a computer and interact with it a few year ago?
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