Once upon a time, there was a television show that took the bizarre and macabre and raised them to art forms. Hosted by Rod Serling, the original The Twilight Zone fascinated and frightened Americans from 1959-1964. Often, Serling would introduce episodes with the phrase, "Imagine if you will,....." At the risk of offending die hard TZ fans and possible copyright violations, I'm going to channel Serling who died in 1975 at fifty, to begin my entry so.......:
Imagine if you will, that for twenty consecutive years, you threw every bill/letter/card/note/notification into your closet which had a big fan blowing constantly. Now imagine, at the end of those twenty years, you stepped into that closet and had to retrieve something. That's where I've found myself in terms of my school computer. More than twenty years ago, WCS put a computer on my desk. I had no idea what to do with it so it just sat. The school let me slide as I had no tech background and we made adjustments. Once, we had an in-service session in our computer lab and Karen Long told us to log in. I had no idea what that meant or what she was saying when she mentioned a password. Eventually, I learned how to turn it on but I had myself for a teacher. I'm not blaming anyone but me- I have shied away from things that I don't understand. There have been actions which helped. In 2005, I started writing a nightly blog, forcing me to become competent with Blogger, owned by Google. Also, using emails from several sources like Yahoo and Hotmail made me figure out various systems. In 2011, I joined Facebook leading to more practice. In school grading, we became automated with Gradequick and now Renweb, giving me daily repetitions. All these helped me gain some measure of competence. But there remained a Bermuda Triangle in my school usage.
When I began to type my quizzes and tests, and soon after, class notes when we began projecting notes on a screen, I still had no clue. I did not know you could change the style/size of font and I still struggle with margins. But the biggest drawback was that I was ignorant in regards to saving work. I had a vague notion that I would hit SAVE AS and type something in a subject line but that was it. I knew it was in my computer somewhere- people kept mentioning something called Y DRIVE which I still can't define- but that was the extent of my expertise in making an assignment semi-permanent. Of course, the next time I needed it, I could not readily find it so when I did, I would save it again some other way. One blessing is that I still teach the same two classes that I taught when I arrived at Westbury Christian in August of 1998- Bible 8 and Gospels. Imagine- there's that word again- if I still had five lesson preps like I did my first year out of college!
Fast forward to this spring. I began deleting stuff that had not had meaning in a decade; free throw ladders from 2009, basketball schedules, letters to parents of players, college recommendations for students who are probably working on their doctorates, etc. But that still left over a thousand files in my working account. So, about ten days ago, I got serious. I went in and reorganized everything. When I stopped, I was several items over 400 and I was drained. It took thirty hours sitting at my school desk and it was very warm in Room 258. But I'm done.
Here's what I learned from the ordeal. I learned there were quizzes and sets of notes I had saved six different times in six different ways. I learned it's much easier to add than to delete. I learned saving files is about consistency and being exact. For example, there were times I saved a quiz by starting B 8 and the next time it was Bib 8 and then it was Bible 8. Sometimes a quiz was designated as Lk and the next time as Luke. Sometimes, I would start out Gospels Notes for Test 6 and then I would write it as Gosp Test 6 Notes. Sometimes I capitalized words and sometimes I didn't. And I could keep going. As you can guess, it was an absolute mess. To fix it, I had to go through line by line, starting with the quizzes for Bible 8. I then found to keep them chronological, they had to be exactly like the others. One extra space and the whole thing went out of whack and I could not always figure out what the problem was. I kid you not- there were assignments I had to save ten different ways until I figured out the error- then I had to delete the other nine. The good thing is I got better at it and it became a challenge..... and I always need a challenge, even if it doesn't matter to others. When I finished the task, there was no small amount of satisfaction in the completion. I felt like celebrating.
You might wonder why the sudden urge to rectify a scenario I had managed to deal with for two decades. Like many things these days, it was a matter of necessity. With the need to learn how to do remote instruction, it became paramount that my material was organized in a way easily accessible. In May, it was announced that one of our amazing teachers, Jeanique LaCour, had been promoted to the role of Instruction Coach, one of the best hires in the history of our school. Jeanique is one of the most optimistic people I've met and she really encouraged me to streamline my resources.... and I want her to be proud of me! I've taught for years and Google Classroom is a whole new ballgame!
Here's a couple of lessons I hope I learned from this ordeal. First, if you don't do stuff right the first time, you have to go back and deal with the consequences down the line. If I'd asked for help in 2000, think how much better off I would have been and maybe a more effective teacher. (And there were plenty of people always willing to work with me!) I would also point out that our God is a God of order. Look at creation- there was a specific sequence to His making of the universe. No randomness is evident in Genesis, at least to me. Biblical teachings are replete with the correct steps in our daily lives which connect with our spiritual lives. Jesus taught one of the great truths of scripture when He told us to, "Seek first, the kingdom of God...." Then, the other things would be taken care of as well. That's what I'm hoping in my distance learning career. Organized files- in the book! Now, to master ZOOM and SCREENCASTIFY!
Applicable quote of the day:
God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1
E-mail me at shawley@westburychristian.org
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