Technology and Me

When I was in eighth grade, I took AP Algebra. I'm not sure why they put me in the class because I didn't really understand anything about math, but I was a good student, and they funneled all the good students into AP classes.

Our teacher, a former military man, kept a giant computer in his office. It was 1973, and the computer was big and gray and took up about two-thirds of the small space. In the remaining third, there was a desk with a tiny monitor, and all the boys in our class would gather around the monitor and do computer things. I really don't have any idea what kinds of computer things. I'm short, could never make my way to the front of the crowd, and finally gave up trying to get into the room. Besides, I didn't really care.

I much preferred to think about words and putting them together and telling stories.

I never imagined that computers and words would be so closely linked together.

Machines of any kind tend to make me a little nervous.

I finished my BA using an electronic typewriter. I would type a draft, mark it up, type it again, mark it up. As many times as I needed.

We bought our first computer in 1994. It ran on Windows and had 4 mg of RAM. It didn't do much, but my kids seemed to have fun. They played games. Learned to chat with people. It was frustrating though because it didn't have enough memory to do much of anything and so we upgraded after a year.

The next computer changed my life.

I began working in medical transcription using a DOS version of Word Perfect. I learned to create macros and files.

I paid my bills.

I got an email account.

I booked vacations online.

I learned to create spreadsheets.
I could do research without leaving my desk.

And I started writing again.

I think differently because of my computer.

And it's not just me.

The world is different because of the options we have available to us.

I can't keep up.

My eighth grade fear of technology comes back every time I have to learn a new program.

My kids, who grew up with computers, seem to know and understand everything intuitively.

There is a new technological culture, and my kids are a part of it. I am not.

I need to immerse myself in this culture, as if I were immersing myself in a foreign culture, and I need to learn to move and operate in this culture.

If I'm going to teach, I need to understand how students think and how they learn.

I'm here because I'm not in eighth grade anymore. I have faced fears and overcome them. I don't know what a drupal or a Moodle are, but I can learn.