I am just finishing an awesome book, When Everything Changed by Gail Collins. It is an interesting history of women in the United States over the past 60 years focusing on their struggle for rights, and societal views toward women, including how women have seen themselves. Memories of sprinkling clothes prior to ironing, and then putting those we didn't get to into the refrigerator came back as though it was yesterday. I highly recommend this as a good read!
So, here I am writing my first blog, a sort of transition from the old to the new, or maybe it's more of an attempt to start chasing the technology and communication that is taken for granted by the younger generation. I have enthusiatically welcomed new technologies into my classroom over the past 5 years, but am definitely lagging far behind in using it in my personal life. Apparently email is out-of-date, and I do some texting, but the MP3 player I purchased 6 months ago has never been turned on. I don't know what to do with it! I just bought a "flip camera" to use with my 4th graders as we begin a "keypal" program with a fourth grade class in New Yourk City. Again, it is still in the box, 2 weeks after buying it. Hopefully some of my young colleagues, or more likely, my 9 and 10 year old students will be able to teach me. You see, I really want to use these things, and although the willingness is there, sometimes my brain just doesn't think in a way that makes them seem "easy." Now I understand why when my mother won a microwave oven in the 70's she didn't use it for over a year! Same with her VCR. The devices have changed, but oh my gosh, I am just like my mother! I am definitley a digital immigrant compared to my digitally native grandchildren!
Conner, at 22 months, walks into a room and immediately scans the room looking for remotes or cell phones. Recently in a hotel room he picked up the remote, stood in front of the TV, had it turned on and was changing channels in a matter of seconds. Athena, 4 years old, has her toy cell phone in her purse whenever we take her dollies for a walk around the block. She periodically stops to "take calls" and even stops to flip the phone up "to take a picture of a big truck" to send to her cousin.
So, here I am on a new adventure. I really don't know why anyone in the world would ever want to read what I'm writing, but it is a way for me journal, and at least feel a little bit better about trying to use of the technology. What an exciting time to be living through. I wonder what authors will have to say about this era, when everything continues to change!
