Technology 101

As I headed to the school to do my observation once again, I was gazing through a school map that was given to me by Mrs. Teacher because they weren't going to be in the portable classroom, but in the computer lab which I had no clue where it was at.

After looking for it for a brief time period I found the class and arrived at the school to go and check in. Luckily as I went to sign in the office, a student who had the class I observed was checking in as I was. I checked in and asked the girl student to wait for me because I didn't know where the computer lab was. As we walked to the class, she seemed to be a little intimidated by me because she was very quiet and treated me like a real teacher which I am not. I told her, how she liked school and what was her favorite subject. She answered me nervously saying "I like school, and my favorite subject is language arts because I like to write. I acknowledged her and said that was great for her, we began to walk through the halls and I reminisced with her for a little bit when I used to be in school and how times were. Our talk was cut short due to the fact that we ended up getting to the computer lab.

As I walked in I greeted all of the students once again and said "Good morning Everyone!" they all said "Good morning", along with Mrs. Teacher. The class was in the lab because they needed to write a paper for New Mexico History and would use it to have computers and not have an excuse not to have technology around them. As I looked around at the students, some were really engaged knowing what they wanted to write about and knew how to use technology. Although there were quite a few who didn't know how to use the computer very well. The teacher noticed this as well and stopped the class because she was going to show these students the basic way to use Microsoft word an how to save the document to their jump drives. Most of the students didn't need to be shown how to do this and they made it known shouting "We know how to do this Mrs! That is easy stuff." Mrs. Teacher said "Yes, most of you know how but there are a few of you who don't know how to."

I began to really think how technology has adapted from when I was in school. I looked at students and a lot of them had earphones in their heads listening to music from the computer and doing their work talking amongst their peers. It seemed like they were joking around, but as I would walk by I saw most of the students who were well on their way with the paper. They were on the internet looking for other facts about New Mexico besides what they had from their own notes. The students tried to see what I knew about the internet either by asking me for help or seeing if I knew what I was doing besides observing the class. I was surprised by these students because they were computer savvy, and used it like it was nothing to them.

Mrs. Teacher stopped the class and said "You guys are awesome because most of you can use technology, and you help each other if one needs it." She looked and pointed to me with a smile and said "Ghostrider, did you know all this stuff when you were their age?" I answered and said "I did know how to use word and save my work on a floppy disk!" The kids were so confused and the class clown shouted "FLOPPY DISK???" I said "Yes, a floppy disk I didn't use jump/flash drives when I was your age. They were square disks that you inserted to the computer and you had to save your work there if you need a file saved. " We continued to talk and laugh for a while because the students were being silly and tried to get off task. Mrs. Teacher noticed the class and allowed it for a while but then re-enganged them to do their work. Most of these students seemed to use technology with ease. It was a pretty cool site to see for these young students.