On New Year's Eve day I posted a request for sharing stories about older
technology and anecdotes about favorite situations. It's been fun to read what
people have shared; It appears that many of us like reminiscing about our
"technological" past. Quite different from the 4th grade students I worked with
today who told me about their ipods! Below are the comments I received:
(unedited)
Mary Alice Anderson
__________
I think it is a fun idea to think back of all the things that made our lives so
much fun and more creative.
My absolutely#1 software program which I still use (miraculously it works with
Windows XP) is a font program called "My Type Artist" . I bought it probably
around 1998-99(I don't have it with me to look) it was $10.00 at Office Max. I
haven't seen fonts this cute in any other program. I wish I could find a newer
version. Made by My Software Company.
Nita Garcia (have permission to quote)
Greenglade Elementary School
Miami, FloridaI
______
Hi. My name is Georgia Harding and I am almost
finished with my library work and masters at UNT, but
I worked for several years in business before moving
in this direction. To make a long story short, I
worked by Tandy Corp. home offices from 1987-1989 when
they were moving from the TRS and DMPs affectionately
known as the trash dumps. The software we were using
was WordPerfect. I really liked it. I was so good, I
was helping friends by troubleshooting over the phone.
I now like Microsoft word the best. I hated pagemaker.
It had a habit of freezing every hour so if you were
smart, you saved every 20 minutes! Tables were a
nightmare in WordPerfect, but now they are so much
easier in MSWord. Lotus 123 was a lot harder to use
than MSExcel, too. And I love email! No stamps necessary!
______
Several years ago I hosted a used book sale in the library where
the students and their families could clean out those old books they didn'twant any
more. One book had a 45 black vinyl record with it. The first twoclasses came and
went, but from the third class on, all the kids wanted to seethe "black CD." That
really hit home!
Candy Bratmon, MSLS
Columbus Elementary School LibrarianandLead Library Technician
Libraries = Literacy (L2) Project
Improving Literacy Through School Libraries Grant
Phone (818) 244-3949
Fax (818) 242-7458
cbratmon@gusd.net
______
JO DERVAN
The one thing that always amazes me about technology is how easily the
younger kids are at working with it and how fearful most adults are about
breaking something.
A few years ago I had a PC hooked up to a large screen TV using a PC/VGA
converter. I was about to give a presentation to a group and the connection
would not work. I panicked. I called one of my 5th grade boys who helped in
the library. He quickly had to whole thing up and running in seconds.
When I asked if he had done this before, he said no but was willing to try a
few wires. I could have done the same thing but was fearful where he wasn't.
Another anecdote: when I arrived at my current school 17 years ago, there
were many machines requiring bulbs. So our custodians kept a stash of bulbs
for every machine. Today the only remaining machines are overhead and opaque
projectors. Everything else has been tossed.
We got a new head custodian and she asked me to determine which bulbs we
needed today. There were about 30 different kinds and we only need 3 kinds
today. The 16MM projectors, filmstrip projectors and other projectors are
all gone. We even had a box of record player needles!
******************************************************
Josephine G. Dervan. Library Media Specialist
Strathmore Elementary School
Aberdeen, NJ 07747
rderva at infionline.net
JACQUIE HENRY
LOVED the CD version of EBSCO databases. We had them prior to theinternet and the
kids thought they were wonderful. As soon as the
internet came along - that was the end of EBSCO et al for research
information, unless they are forced to use them. If only the databases
would mimic Google's clean interface......
Memorable experience? The time I introduced EBSCO's online databases to
a class researching Elizabethan times. I tried it out the afternoon
prior to the class and all was fine. So, I confidently typed in "Globe
Theater" - and got a list of articles about "white mice". I tried the
alternative spelling of "Globe Theatre". Still - "white mice". So - I
went on to something else, assuring the kids that it was a temporary
glitch. As we progressed, I discovered that one side of the lab got
"white mice" and the other side got actual articles on "globe theater".
Go figure!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jacquie Henry, MLS
Ruben A. Cirillo High School (GHS)
Gananda Central School District
3195 Wiedrick Road
P.O. Box 609
Macedon, NY 14502
315-986-3521 x 3144
jhenry@gananda.org
Library Page: http://www.gananda.org/library/mshslibrary/indexgcl.htm
Blog: http://nlcommunities.com/communities/wanderings/default.aspx
Monica Williams-Mitchell
My all time favorite program was WordPerfect 5.1. It was the wiz-kid of
word processors and the first program I used with students to produce
copy for the school newspaper.
Our first layouts were done on old Apples that lacked hard drives -- you
had to continually switch back and forth between the program disk and
the data disk! We thought we were really on the edge, though!
Happy New year,
Monica Williams-Mitchell
Seton High School
LISA HUNT
I noticed your email is mac.com. Are you a Mac user? I still love Macs, but ours
are all gone. I've been thinking about how to best dispose of all the Mac
software. Our district just removed all the Mac during the Summer of 06, but they
have no plan about disposing of our software. We have thousands of discs
throughout our district.
I have boxes and boxes stacked up in a room. I was looking over some of them just
before Winter Break. Here's my funny tidbit: I found the large box full of
envelopes with our OS X software. The district instructed all teachers to access
the Mac site and order our OS X software upgrades. There were strict instructions
about how each teacher receives a free upgrade, but we are district employees so
the software belongs to the district not the teacher. When the envelopes began
arriving at schools each Site Tech was instructed to collect these envelopes and
"hold" the software for installation within the district. It never happened...
That was 2004, and since then the district said "OS X is not compatible with our
network."; "We need to upgrade the speed of our network to run OS X." After the
upgrade, "Macs aren't secure on our network." and now "We will remove Macs and go
all Dell within out district." That software? Oh yeah, just hang on to it and
we'll tell you how to dispose of it later. It's still sitting in a box in my
equipment room. I know there are such boxes all across my district.
Technology plans change so quickly. I just laugh now, because there is no sense to
be found. I have to laugh at all the expensive software I'm throwing away.
Mary Alice Anderson, Media Specialist, Writer
Winona, MN
WEB SITE: http://homepage.mac.com/maryalicea/Sites/Anderson/Anderson.html
SURFAQUARIUM TOP ONLINE EDUCATOR 2006:
http://www.surfaquarium.com/TOE/2006/maanderson.htm
> Online Professional Development , School of Education: University of Wisconsin -
>Stout
> Advocacy and Emerging Issues for Media Specialists
> http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/issues/
>Digital Classroom: Teaching with Primary Sources
> http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/digitalclassroom/
> maryalicea@mac.com
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