You realize you are growing up when… you see ads on facebook for Motorola Q, iPods, and Mac notebooks and realize the new generation of college students is on a whole new level of technology revolution.
Remember back in college when we used to take class notes on notebooks? When we used to buy paper calendars to write out our exam date? When we used to take walkmans or cd players (for the tech savvy) with us at the gym? And remember when having a computer desktop in your dorm room was a luxury? Those days are long gone my friends!
I’ve just come to realize that after being out of the college scene for nearly 5 years, a lot has changed. Now mind you that a lot changed during the 7.5 years I lived on campus, while I was in college and graduate school in the late 90’s. Now it has changed even more.
These days students are using the Motorola Q for texting, talking, and planning. The iPod has replaced the walkman. And notebooks mean something completely different. Having a laptop is now a necessity (it was only started to become required when I got my MBA in 2001). It seems now that many classes are requiring students to have their own laptop notebooks. My how times have changed!
Finally, after 30 years, I understand how my mom felt when I started using a walkman, bought a cd player, and brought home a DVD player. I wonder what is next? Thumbprint and retinal scanners? Ohh wait…
Recent articles:
http://littlewetdog.com/blog/easter-bunny-photo-day/
http://littlewetdog.com/blog/4/
I’m going to really show how old I am.
When I was in grammar school, all desks had ink wells. Yeah, the kind you
put a bottle of ink into and dipped your pen. Luckily, it was so messy
that teachers generally welcomed fountain pens and later ball point pens.
Not everyone was joyous about these technical advances. Fountain pens
leaked. Ball points had very hard tips that left permanent scratches in
the desk top. The student had to exert so much pressure that it ‘ruined’
their penmanship. I never got proficient at any penmanship. It was one
of those ‘lost arts’ that was sacrificed on the altar of utility. My age
bracket was lucky to have a place to sit in a classroom for a while. The
baby boom caught America’s schools totally unprepared. My 2nd grade classroom had over 60 children in it.* How much ‘individual attention’ do
you think we got? We did get structure and ‘discipline’. That is
probably the advantage I had in the majority of my life. I could put up
with damned near anything and still be productive. (Whining was not
allowed.)
When I was in college, many classes still required essay tests to be
written in fountain pen into ‘theme books’. If you don’t know what a
theme book is, God Bless You. It was a small blue covered booklet,
stapled, with perhaps eight pages, blessedly lined. (Mother claims in her
college days they could not use fountain pens (just too damned modern).
For me, the fountain pen was sheer torture. By the way, such tests forced
one to plan the entire essay before setting pen to paper. Spelling and
grammar? Puhleeze, you lost major points for any such errors.
Yes, I know I’m rambling, but I want you to know that the march of
technology in the classroom is not something new. It was there when I was in school and it will continue after we’re gone.
Wow! Amazing how the generational changes in society allow for this evolution. As a new teacher, did you ever think students would one day be sitting at their desk with laptop taking notes? I sure didn’t see that one when I was a student. I’ll be curious to see what happens to the next generation or maybe generation next?