NO TEACHER LEFT BEHIND

   This past November 28th I turned 58 years old.  Technology was never a big part of my life until I started teaching.  Why?  Because there wasn't much technology to speak of.  I remember the first used TV that was given to my parents.  I remember when we got our first telephone which happened to be on a party line with two of our neighbors.  Technology in school consisted of records and a record player, scratched filmstrips and even more scratched movies on the large metal reels.  In college we had VHS movies and cameras.  When I started working as a graphic artist in a small local printing business I used my first computer.  It was a Mac and was its screen ever small and it was very limited in what it could do.  I worked in graphic art for almost twelve years with various updated computers and equipment but then I started teaching on the Lateral Entry program.
   I was hired as an elementary art teachers for five different schools with the understanding that I would obtain my certification within five years - which I did.  I remember the first technology workshop that I took.  What a fiasco!  We were using the old Apple 2Es with the two large floppy disks.  Believe it or not we were supposed to write a program.  I thought to myself, "There's got to be a better way!"
   Then one day in a special ed class I saw something that started my love for technology.  I saw a teacher working on, of all things, a PowerPoint presentation.  I was blown away and totally amazed by it.  By this time I had my own PC at home.  So I actually taught myself how to use this totally awesome program.  I can't help but laugh at myself when I saw mention of slides in PowerPoint.  In my ignorance I thought that somehow this program was capable of creating 35mm slides - a technology that I was familiar with! LOL!  Anyway I became so proficient with this program that I ended up teaching it to other teachers in my county school system.  The technology bug had bitten me and I would never be the same!
   From then on I have been a strong advocate for technology and especially in education.  Unlike many of my older peers who used their classroom PC as a paperweight I embraced technology as one of the most important resources that education had ever seen.  What were those other teachers thinking?  Technology is not a fad and it's not going away.  I saw that my students were growing up in the digital age and I didn't want to be left behind.  Speaking of No Child Left Behind, when it comes to technology in education, I think that there should be No Teachers Left Behind.

   Since my introduction with technology I have taught many workshops, done presentations in state conferences, taught the first online technology workshop in my county and continue to incorporate technology into my classroom and art curriculum. One thing that is so exciting to me about technology right now is all of the free online Web 2.0 tools that are available to teachers.  In future posts I hope to expound on some of these tools as well as tell how I am using technology in my class and school.
   So when it comes to technology and older teachers, if you happen to think that you can't teach an old dog new tricks, I'm living proof that you can.  In fact, one of my main goals of this blog is to demonstrate how others can also be taught new technological tricks.  I hope that I can, in some way, be the spark to ignite other teachers' love of technology the way that the teacher using PowerPoint ignited mine.

Larry Hewett