My first blog in a long time. What to write.
Well the main reason I created this blog was for my ECMP 355 class at the U of R. So far it seems like it will be a great class.
Today’s class (the first by the way), while we were looking at the ‘first internet’ reminded of my family’s first ‘computer’, the old Commodor 64. Looking back at that, I am reminded of just how much technology in this world really has changed. Technology in schools 😮 that’s just scary (haha). I remember back in (I think) my grade 11 year. We had a brand new teacher get hired to teach English at our small rural high school (of about 700 at the time). We were all shocked and quite amazed when she started putting all her notes and ‘lectures’ in powerpoint format. What was this? It was crazy! She must have been some crazy person from the city trying to corrupt us all. I’m not going to lie, some people did have those kinds of thoughts. Little did we know, the next year that teacher would have the first classroom in the school to become completely computerized. All of the standard desks were taken out and replaced with tables with computers on them, in two horseshoes, one computer for everyone.
I go back to my hometown a few times every year (Christmas, Reading Week, summer). This small rural Alberta high school is now becoming one of this area’s first CLCs (Community Learning Center). It is becoming a high school intergrated into the college as well as the University of Calgary and I believe Red Deer College. Everything on the new campus is extremly technological. Most classrooms are computerized, online courses are available that are podcast to numerous other schools in the district. It’s insane (in a good way)
I think I may be beginning to ramble on a bit so I guess I’ll end off my first post here. I will be posting more, for sure, in weeks to come.
We can never be certain about the future and therefore we must continue to be flexible and adaptable so that we can react quickly to the needs of our clients and our market place.
Talal Abu-Ghazaleh
Andrea's Blog 
Not rambling at all but reflecting. Your experience in school will shape you future teaching style. Part of the power of blogging is to gain insights about our beliefs that often aren’t shared. To quote Martha Stewart….”it’s a good thing”.
Haha…700 kids is small. I graduated with 12 other kids believe me you were not in a small school. Small is a k-12 school with 150 kids. Just had to point that out. And the fact that you got computers in the classroom is a big deal even if it was only one classroom. Most schools I’ve been in might have 1 computer pure classroom then another 30 or so for the library and computer lab. Just a different perspective to look at when it comes to technology and school size.
Amber
700 students might not be small to you. 700 students at the time was small to me, and it is very small for the area. I realize that many places (particularly in Saskatchewan are much smaller as you mentioned) but, that was not my experience in high school as I didn’t go to high school in Saskatchewan. Up until the point we got that one classroom with computers we had about 30 computers (maybe) total in the entire school, so I know where you are coming from with that.
Thanks for the comment.