Technology In The Classroom (Then & Now)

Before I start discussing my adventures in Introduction to ICT and beyond, I'd like to start with a brief sketch of technological change in the classroom based on my observations and experiences.

Then: 
When I went through the public school system, computers were making their presence felt in schools but only tentatively. My first contact with computers in a classroom environment would have been in the early 90s, on computers that did not even have Windows installed on them. The programs available were largely typing programs or simple mathematical ones that allowed you to use a mouse to arrange various shapes on the screen. There were no computers in the classroom and Internet use in schools was still many years away.

I remember distinctly seeing my first "multimedia" on a computer, probably in 1993, a 30-second clip of a cheetah running and thinking that was the most amazing thing ever. There was a special computer in the centre of the computer lab that only teachers and, I believe, Grade 6 students could use that had Windows installed and programs like Encarta. Still, despite a lot of talk about computers being increasingly important in the future, they felt "tacked on" to the school curriculum and we only spent one or two periods a week in the computer labs.

When I was in Grade Five, I got my first home computer, a 486, which was state of the art for the time and enabled me to begin typing up assignments on the computer, which was a blessed relief for a young man with distinctly poor handwriting. Not long afterwards, I became the only person I knew personally- not simply in my class, either. I received this computer and the Internet access through a fundraising effort in the belief that it would be beneficial for my disability, which was probably a correct assumption. As for computer use in the classroom, it was still restricted almost entirely to computer labs, which I actually accessed less often in Middle Years than in Early Years.

It wasn't until I was in high school that computers began to be seen in the classroom, though they were primarily used by teachers. There were Computer Science and Keyboarding classes, and I took one of the Computer Science classes and the Keyboarding class. The former was rather fun, though I remember wasting more time than I should have using Napster (it took the school another year or so to realize piracy was probably not a thing to allow on campus) and the latter, while horrifically boring and tedious, was a godsend as it finally taught me how to type with fluency and speed. Nonetheless, while I relied more and more on home computer use for schoolwork, the experience with technology in the classroom was still relatively minimal.

Now:

I started my student teaching at George Fitton School with my former Grade 2 teacher, though the placement itself was in Grade One. When I was in her class 21 years ago, there were no computers in the classroom and the establishment of a computer lab was a recent development. In her class today, there are four computers, all of which are vastly more powerful than anything that existed when I went to school, let alone had access to. There was also a smartboard, which was used frequently in the classroom, though observably less often than in some of the other classrooms I visited where they were used daily or more than once a day.

There are serious discussions about acquiring mobile technology en masse for students to use in class time, and discussing the principle of giving a device to every student in the school. Already, there are carts with large numbers of laptops that are used to give most of the upper-level students regular access to school computers. Students are using computers every day in virtually every classroom and they do it at a level of proficiency I likely didn't gain until I was in high school.

There is a very real chance that there is more computing power present in my former school, an inner-city school in one of the most economically deprived catchment areas in Brandon, than existed in MIT when I was in high school. The technological revolution is only beginning and if I want to be at all viable as a classroom teacher in this brave new world, then I have a lot to learn ...