Technology Medley

If you’ve taught in any elementary school or have young children, you are most likely familiar with the Judith Viorst book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Well, by the end of the day today, I felt like Alexander. Let me explain.

I had planned to record some first graders this morning asking questions for Dr. Seibert’s trip to India. We had a brand new voice recorder, and this was our first opportunity to use it. However, even after 3 battery changes and a call to Olympus, it would not power up. So, I thought I could just use my ipod….but I could not find my microphone! I emptied everything in my office looking for it, but it was not to be found! At this point, I was already feeling a bit like Alexander, but I remembered the external mics in the computer lab. I plugged one into my laptop, configured Audacity so it would recognize the mic, and finally headed down to first grade. I’ve heard people say to always have a Plan B, but this situation warranted a Plan C.

Later in the morning, I had an introductory SmartBoard lesson with Mrs. Crotts’s Kindergarten class. We were all excited about using the SmartBoard, and I had a fun sorting activity on my computer to use with the children. However, my computer refused to recognize the SmartBoard! The children were so patient while they waited for me to disconnect my computer, reconnect another one, and find an alternative lesson. Thank goodness for holiday games in Starfall!

In the afternoon, Judy Fisher and I planned to get her second graders started creating their own blogs using Classblogmeister.  Since the day already seemed to be jinxed,  I went to the computer lab a few minutes early to make sure all of the links worked, and they did! (Whew!) So, the children all logged into their blogs, and they started writing their Thanksgiving blog entries. When the first child finished and clicked Save, she got a page not found message. Hmmm….That was not supposed to happen! Seems that the entire school had lost our internet connection! (We copied what the others had written into Word documents, saved those, and after school when our connection was restored, Judy and I copied their writing back into their blogs.)

So, the day was just a bit unusual, to say the least! Fortunately, I had strategies for handling each situation, but it really made me think about how often I’ve heard teachers say “I would love to use technology, but I don’t know how to troubleshoot, or I don’t have time to troubleshoot, when things go wrong.” Sometimes, things just go wrong. Always test equipment and web sites in advance, and have a Plan B (or C!) ….and learn to expect the unexpected.

By the day’s end, color sheets and crayons were beginning to sound pretty good to me!

p.s. I found my ipod microphone at home later this evening. The Olympus mic will be sent back to the factory for replacement. The kindergartners loved the SmartBoard activities that we did, and the second graders are proud of their blogs. Guess it wasn’t such a bad day after all!