I looked through some old files that I needed to purge tonight. I figure since I’m not going back to the English classroom next year, I could throw out some of my old lessons. I have most of them in digital format anyway. My family has a pack-rat gene, and I’m trying my best to fight it. I couldn’t just toss everything into the recycling, though. Every few pages was…. an overhead! I had to pull each one out and toss them separately into the trash. Oh, a plastic tree was sacrificed!
Okay, I do admit that I used some transparencies in my day, but I was by far not the biggest overhead that I’ve met. When I moved into the business computer lab the year I taught at Humboldt in St. Paul, I purged “computer class” worksheets that were printed in the purple ditto ink. Remember that? I figured at that time, anything still printed on that paper was worth tossing for a technology class.
Today, I tossed transparencies for teaching English. So, what is the next stage? What will seem “old” in ten years? Our SMART Board lessons? Our iPad resources?
It’s amazing how fast technology is progressing. It really hit home to me today as I tossed out those transparencies. I haven’t been out of the classroom long. I’m starting on year five. But, the technologies AND the teaching practices look so different from when I last had students each day. How can we keep up?