If you knew me back in the day, like most of my students, I was very adamant about not having a cell phone. I do not have a TV. My computer was a large sturdy desktop with so many cords I needed to label each one and safe guard the instructions for every time I moved. A technology upgrade was upon my horizon....and it has changed the way I view teaching completely for the better.
I look around and notice how things have changed in the past year. At school I am using an iPad, Mac book air, and a SMART board. On top of that I have purchased Air server to connect them all. I'm uploading documents to my Google Drive so they can be uploaded to my Noteability and CloudOn. My pictures are loaded to my DropBox and I'm making MPEG4's through Garage Band so my students can load my songs onto their iTunes. Two weeks ago, our school's server went down. And I showed the secretary how she could use her Smart phone to get to Gmail, so she could still communicate with parents. Last week, I Facetimed with a student who was unable to make it to class and she did not want to miss a lesson.
On Friday, during first period, a teacher called me up because she was having difficulty while trying to connect her iPad to the SMART board by using Airserver. This is what my conversation might have sounded to my students. ME "You double press that side button on the black outer trim on the iPad." Pause. ME "You then see this bottom bar come up and you swipe it to the right." Pause. ME "You then find the circle with the square inside and a triangle inside the square. Then press that icon." Pause. ME "Then you find your name and slide the circle thingy to the right." "A code should come up."
When I was done the students were amazed and a comment came up. "Senorita...., teachers are calling you for iPad advice? I don't know if that is scary or sad."
Whatever it is, I'm thinking 'technology adviser' might have to be added to my resume, which will bring a smile to my face every time I think about how far I have come.
No comments:
Post a Comment