Computer Crashed!!

My school computer crashed this morning. I just finished with the lesson when my tower went down. Not sure why, just did. I thought it was the monitor but no, its the tower. Lucky for me, we have a computer in the teacher office behind my room. I changed it out and pressed start. The LCD projector had to be reset, my downloads to run my mimio have to be downloaded, the security running in my room has to be downloaded as well. Technology is a gift that, at times, makes my job easier and more enjoyable. When crashes occur, the enjoyability factor sinks.Sadly I am a little lost without it all, and certainly more comfortable with an interactive whiteboard than writing on a whiteboard. Weird. 18 months ago I didn't have any of these tools, how quickly I forget.

I am trying to integrate as much technology as I can into daily lessons. I geeked all summer finding resources that would fit into my plan. After 6 weeks of class I can conclude that more technology isn't necessarily better, but meaningful tech is. So far we have used google docs, wiki's and blogs fairly extensively. Kids are still getting a little confused when having to sign into one tool or another. I think focusing on these 3 will be enough for the semester. There is so much to choose from, I want to work it all in but know I can't.

Once a geek....

Is technology making me dumb?

As I try to digitize my classroom as much as possible I find myself completely dependent on the tech for my daily presentation of my lessons. I use an LCD projector which is hooked up to a mimio board that acts as an interactive workspace. I absolutely love it. I can show a class step by step how to set up a wiki or a blog and also have them come up and show me a new web tool they found. Then, the light bulb on my LCD burns out, OMG!!!! Now what am I going to do, I have a video planned for class. Yikes! I go back to the textbook and muddle through the class, all the while panicking about my LCD.

I have only had the LCD for about a year. I have taught without it and a mimio. When I lost both (it was only for a day) I felt that I had to rework my plans. The video got put off until a later date, I had planned to start a class in blogs and did that while circling the room continuously to make sure everyone was supposed to be where I wanted them to be. I was a mild disaster. Miraculously, most got their blogs set up.

That night I was with my daughter at her swimming lesson and it occurred to me that I could have used the TV with the DVD player hooked up to it. This piece of technology is stored about 20ft away from my desk. I was dumbfounded. I could not believe that it didn't even occur to me to use a TV, which I used for 2 years before receiving my LCD and mimio. Sometimes technology does make you dumb, I proved it (sadly) this week.