How have connections with other professionals improved your practice? Today's entry is from Adrienne St. George, District Librarian:
There are many mentors and heroes in my teaching career that I could never list them all.
My excitement and interest in technology started when Simeon Greenstein organized a tech fair at TP for anyone to attend in the early 1990s. I walked away in a daze of "oh boy...think of the things I can do" without any clue of how to start and absolutely zero tech background. The only reference to anything technology up to that point for me was a typed on a typewriter evaluation from an AP that stated I was a technology pioneer because I used an overhead projector in the classroom on a daily basis. Wow!!!
Fortunately EW was the place where some teachers had already decided to bring technology to their classrooms. Two main ground breakers were Dan Salas and Larry Hilke. The two of them convinced enough teachers and the principal, Marilyn Pugh, to jump in. Soon Dan had put together enough equipment to create what he called Pugh Net. It was so basic compared to what we have today in the District but it was what we had and no one else had. We used Eudora for communication and I learned all sorts of stuff about bulletin boards, Ethernet cards, and new terms like POP, SMTP, IMAP, Internet, FTP, ISP, etc. It was a brand new language and fascinating. We had to trouble shoot our own problems but also had Dan and Larry to give us very professional cues: "Is your computer plugged in? Is your computer turned on? Try wiggling the wires. Please do not use white out on your monitor."
The teachers who joined in at EW were having so much fun that we made enough noise to make the District notice. Soon the District jumped on board and we had a DO tech leader, Bill Olien who was a master of the big picture. He moved all sites into consistency and similar goals. We changed to ccMail and then Novell and started using grading software and and and...
I was so caught up that I decided to forget the admin road and went for a masters in ed tech. I got that master's at a school that only used macs; I learned to despise the bomb when the darned system would crash but became familiar with both Apple and PC platforms which make today's world of variety much easier to work with. I really learned that these fascinating machines and systems were tools that were going to help me out a lot once I figured out what to do. I learned a whole new way to look at learning objectives and design.
I ended up teaching a computer class at EW which, at the time, was part of the district business dept. Basically the class was keyboarding. My class went beyond keyboarding. I had to completely throw out my "absolute need for perfection and everything will go as planned without hitches" types of lesson plans. I faced things like: The computers are down...now what? Uh oh...a student got past the filter...now what? The machines have to be re-imaged: they will be down for an entire day because they take 90 minutes each to image one by one...now what? The portable that the lab was in was built over a swampy area: one morning there were 100s of mosquito hawks swirling thru: now what? Salas and Hilke would calmly say: wiggle the wires, step out of the box, take the kids for a walk, we know you have a backup plan: you are too anal to not have a back up plan...and, of course...it all worked out. The kids loved the class, they loved the mishaps, they loved the structure to explode...made for a fun time for them...made for interesting and hair pulling days for me but...it did all work out.
Of course, the speed with which things advanced was and is amazing! There is only so much that can fit in my brain so sometimes it is just as much fun to sit back and watch the brainiacs who just inhale all the new stuff and make it work. I often wish that some of these brains were transparent so I could watch the action as those brain cells trigger and race around. One of these brains belongs to Joel Van Hooser. He is just brilliant. He started as a student at SDA and worked with Dan Salas. When Dan had moved from EW to SDA, the technology at SDA suddenly exploded. He captured the interest of a lot of students when he started training students how to fix computers and work on network structure. Joel was one of those students and an exceptional one.
When I became a teacher, I was looking at a great career of teaching History, which I love, but fell into the opportunity of another dimension through the demonstrations of teachers who were looking ahead and looking for challenges beyond what was in place. The challenge part was scary but turned out to be fun and is still very exciting. Suddenly I was doing more than "just" teaching History. Yes, all of it is daunting and I know I will never know the half of it. I know I have limits but somehow those limits keep stretching and I always seem able to learn yet another thing. Even when my brain is stuffed to the limit, something else pops up that looks so interesting and seems to capture students; I know it is another moment to give it a shot.
I really thank Dan and Larry for getting me started and supporting me through all of those beginning and ensuing years. I know I was a trial and a pest but they hung in there and kept me moving forward. I know my goofy questions and improvised ways of doing things provided them with quite a few hilarious stories to share. Currently, my mentors and heroes are the huge number of teachers all across the District who are taking the initiative to try something that is new. I am so impressed and want to know what they are doing. It is so fascinating and fun to watch student excitement and involvement as teachers use the key that captures so many students: the very cool tool of technology.
