Thoughts, Reflections, and Essays

I sold my SLR Minolta Maxuum a couple years ago, when I found my digital camera and asked myself why I have all these stacks of pictures. Especially since my life has evolved to become integrated into my computer... yes... backups are important as my life is on it. I wouldn't know where to go, who I knew, how much money I have, what bills I have to pay, or even what to do at 7:00 tomorrow without my computers. Jeez. That's scary. Good thing I have that Western Digital 160 GB external harddrive with auto backup and data security hardware that detects for decaying sectors, automatically fixes them, and safeguards them. Phew. I remember, when getting my new computers and how the databackup INcd (Mt. Ranier Format) backup discs wouldn't work and how much information I lost.Anyway, back to the readings. I have been newly introduced to Photoshop and am absolutely amazed with how powerful this program is. I haven't done much with my digital photography to date, other than put a photo on a website or send photos via e-mail. But playing with Photoshop is going to become my new hobby it seems. I would, after reading these articles, like to purchase a better digital camera... when I have money again. But I did buy my present one with the prior knowledge that I wasn't going to be printing pictures (nor were my parents etc...) and that a majority of my pictures were only going to appear in web browsers, and that web browsers can not show all the pixels that some of the newer, fancier cameras can offer. One thing, with my knew foyer into Photoshop, web creation, and digital photography, I feel it is necessary to learn (and that I have been forced to struggle with) is pixels. I had heard the word before, but never realized how much you actually have to know about them to best present yourself on the web. My daughter is 4. Her favorite "toys" are pc cd-roms. Especially, recently, Clifford's Musical Memory game. I am impressed with the amount of learning content, and the active engagement it offers my daughter, that the people from Scholastic have caused to enter my house with this program. She knows, at 4, how to boot up the Alienware, where to find the exe for her games, how to put the CD-Rom in, how to save games.... etc... When I really reflect on this, it is simply amazing. With the pace of technology, I cannot fathom what she is going to be doing with technology when she graduates from high school. I've said in earlier posts about how we cannot imagine what technology will be extant in 10, 20 years. We cannot therefore imagine what learning, particularly that effected by technology (which most certainly will effect learning on exponential levels), will be like. I read a book called Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. In it, the students all carried "desks" which, I imagined as laptop computers (this book was written in the late 70s, so like most sci-fi writers, Card's imagination was uncanny and prophetic). We now have some schools where every student is issued a laptop. Not so sci fi. How will my daughter learn? My generation grew up through almost every innovation in home computers. Growing up middle class, I was able to have almost every computer generation in my home. I did own a Vic-20, a ColecoVision ADAM computer, worked in Dos 6.0 on a 486 computer. Thought I had hit the big time when I got my 266 mhz Pentium with 64MB of RAM for my first year of teaching. VGA graphics. Learning is becoming intertwined and highly influenced by technology and computers, yet, unimaginable to me, there are still teachers who do not accept it, do not welcome it, and do not adapt their teaching to incorporate it.