Rick's+January+Report

//**My December Report is posted on the portal. It identifies the major projects with which Joey and I have been involved during our first four months as Technology Mentors. Knowing that Joey has done an excellent job in his January Report of not only identifying what we have been doing this month, but also providing insight as to where we might be going during the next five months, I decided to add a different twist to my January report. I took the liberty as one of the original (better know as “refurbished”) Tech Mentors to write my report as it might have appeared in January, 1997. I did so hoping that it might add a new dimension to the progress that we have been making in New Brunswick with regard to the integration of technology with the curriculum. I was also inspired to do so because placing it on the Wiki will allow me to add to what I have begun. This will be an ongoing report during the month of February. It will culminate at the end of the month with a professional reflection on the transitions we have been successfully making – evolving from offering courses on software to utilizing software as a teaching tool; from global competitions to global collaborations; from school learning groups to professional learning communities; from teacher directed learning to student constructive learning. I hope my personal reflections will stimulant professional contemplation.**//

It is January 31, 1997. I have just completed the first half of my term as a Technology Mentor with School District 16. My colleague, Joe Kenny, and I are two of only six mentors in the province. We have had the unique opportunity to introduce teachers and students to educational applications of technology as part of a pilot project with the Department of Education.

Our main contact person at the department is Kevin McCluskey. He is providing us with both direction and resources. He constantly encourages us to be both creative and innovative. Our supervisor is Marjorie Sinclair. She is a wonderful supervisor, having given us the freedom to be as creative as we feel we should be. Whenever we run into a problem she always responds first with the same question, “Did you read the book?” Our response most times is, “No”. To which she replies, “Well, read the book first and then get back to me.” Inevitably, we then do read the book and find the answer to our problem. Nevertheless, Marjorie always remains our first resource. The book comes in second.

What an interesting position to have at this stage of my career! After all, when I began teaching in September, 1977, there was no such thing as a computer in any school in the Province of New Brunswick. In fact we were just in the process of making the transition from Gestetners to AB Dick machines. (We often wondered whether students like sniffing the sheets they were given because of the smell or because of the fumes from the 100% alcohol that was used to make them!) I clearly remember the first computer that arrived in our school. It came with a fascinating piece of software called PrintMaster. It allowed us to make banners and posters, many of which began to pop up all over schools throughout our district. I had one of my students show me how to use it.

In this position I get to work with the latest technology – Windows ‘95, HyperStudio, Microsoft Works, Paint, and All the Right Type. Speaking of All the Right Type, we are now involved in a great debate about typing. Many believe that it will soon become obsolete because of “Voice Recognition”. Those who believe it is still necessary to teach this important skill are not sure when that should happen, especially now with the advent of computerized technology. Many teachers are worried about the impact computerized technology will have upon penmanship.

Big things are about to happen. The “word on the street” is that technology is about to undergo a gargantuan change by means of new program, Microsoft Office ’97, being introduced by Bill Gates. This program will help teachers stay better organized, create and file documents by means of Word ’97, and assist in making presentations more interesting by means of PowerPoint ’97. Teachers are intrigued by, and asking for courses on, E-Mail.

I am spending a lot of my time trying to make teachers feel comfortable about the latest technology. Many have a difficult just using a mouse. Most of our professional development is related to instruction on specific software, such as Microsoft Works and HyperStudio. There is not a great deal of emphasis, at this stage, of integrating technology with the classroom curriculum, which is understandable. Teachers have to first know what a teaching tool can do before they can envision how it can be applied to their teaching. That is my challenge and, right now, it is a big hurdle to jump. It is bound to happen, however, when more teachers begin to see the advantages of applying the latest technology to their classroom teaching. We just have to be patient.

One of the most interesting projects with which I am involved is a global competition called CyberFair ‘97. I am working closely with students from Croft Elementary on a web site entitled, “Leadership in the City of Miramichi”. I love this project because it not only integrates technology with the curriculum, but it also enables students to construct knowledge – the ultimate goal of our vision for technology! They are interviewing community leaders such as our premier, Frank McKenna and Jason Dickson, a former student who is pitching with the Anaheim Angels. We have borrowed web space from the University of New Brunswick on which to post our information. The project can be found a the following web site: http://cspace.unb.ca/nbco/pigs/croft/

Most students involved with the CyberFair ’97 project do not have a computer at home. They are just too expensive for most families. A 486 computer costs at least $1000.00, but that does not include the monitor! Furthermore, Internet access is slow even though the speed of dial-up is in the process of almost doubling in speed from 28.8 to 56kbps. Therefore, there is a need for more community access centres in our province, and that is happening, especially because schools are being offered $30 000.00 worth of technology if they establish a centre that is open to the public each evening after regular school hours. Therefore, I am encouraging the students to go to their new Community Access Centres to do research for their project. They are using “Webcrawler” as their main search engine for online resources. I inserted Miramichi into the Webcrawler Search Engine today and notice that there are already six entries! Wow! The Internet is beginning to become more active with web sites!

I have just convinced our Superintendent to purchase a new $3000.00 486 computer for Croft Elementary School so that we can have the latest technology to upload our web pages. By the way, in case you’re not aware of the technology…that is not easy to do. Together, the students and I have had to learn a whole new language…html! Furthermore, we learned how to upload a picture to our site. We’ll have to be careful not to do that too often because it takes up a great deal of the 1mb of space that we have thus far been allocated!

Just heard about something called "Y2K" that is related to the date change for the new Millenium. It is something for which we have to begin to prepare because, apparently, if technicians don't tweak computers properly we could lose all data, planes may literally fall out of the sky, and web sites will permanently crash. A lot of tweaking will have to be done because it seems that the foundation for everything we do in this world is becoming computerized! It should be interesting to see what will happen, especially considering the speed at which web sites are being loaded on to the Internet. Most even now include graphics and it is feared that our systems will only be able to hold so many mb before they come crashing down!