How Does This Class Apply to my World?

I was once sitting with a fellow colleague, discussing our disdain for the work habits of a gifted student.  During the discussion, he once uttered the phrase "I honestly enjoy learning new things; it doesn't even matter what."  These words have always struck me as pertinent.  If given the choice of knowledge, why not take it?  Aside from the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge's sake I have been learning many things that can be applied to my personal and professional life. 

For example, learning about the components of a computer has allowed me to speak with some of more computer savy friends with a sense of equality.  Also, aside from the content of the class, the shear workload has helped me work on prioritization skills.  Finally, from a personal standpoint, it's sometimes hard to know when you're going to need to know or use something.  My brother has been a workout fanatic for years, and whenever people asked him why, he would respond, "For a purpose I'm not quite sure of yet."  Last week he became a personal trainer.  I'm not trying to say that I'm going to become a computer technician, but it never hurts to know things.

For the purpose of my work as an educator, I have learned a couple of things that are applicable for my job.  For example, before this class I never knew how pivotal a role the fans played in the functioning of a computer.  For some of our older models, I have often contemplated removing the noisy fans.  However, it was not until Dr. Sklar informed me that a computer would only last a couple of hours with such a surgery, that I realized how stupid that would have been.  Finally, staying on my theme of preparing for the unknown, my school offers a basic computer class, taught primarily to middle schoolers.  As the current teacher is approaching retirement age, upon completion of this class, I'd like to think I'll be somewhat qualified to take his place.  Anytime a teacher can be cross-categorical, a school district benefits. 

Regardless of the purpose, I feel this class has been very informative, broadening my knowledge of computers; a topic that one can never know too much about in this day and age.

Computer History for Jared Peterson

Although I had limited experience with computers in elementary school (I couldn't tell you the brand of the computer, but I remember only green text, along with no image capabilities), my first true interaction with a computer on a regular basis was with a Hewlett-Packard desktop.  When my father brought this mystical machine into our lives in 1996, the Peterson family had officially been ushered into a new technological era.  As my family has never been quick to accept change (it seemed like we were the last family to get a CD player, DVD player, or cellular phones), we didn't really immerse ourselves in the brand new purchase.  For example, we had no Internet access (we weren't online until 2001).  The computer was mainly used to keep track of financial information, type papers for school, or play video games (it would be scary to see how many Duke Nukem hours my brothers and I logged). 

However, this old beast of a computer definitely changed the way that I worked and played.  For starters, typing papers became much easier.  Having the ability to type papers at my leisure allowed me more time to produce quality work.  This is something I couldn't do at school, always feeling the time crunch of the end of the period.  Also, through the advanced learning method of "trial and error," I became very proficient in the ways of word processing.  I remember struggling with just saving a document, figuring out how to copy/paste, or even simply being able to properly use page setup.  As far as my gaming history was concerned, this was certainly a massive upgrade.  Before the computer, a standard NES (Super Mario Bros. all the way) was the extent of my gaming life.  Then, with the introduction of the computer, I had games with amazing graphics (in my eyes), more than two player capabilities, and the ability to save seasons (I loved sports games).

Since my first experience with a computer, many technological advancements have made my first computer a relic.  As Dr. Sklar mentioned, browser speed outranks processing power.  For example, I vividly remember my father purchasing extra memory for the computer, along with constantly deleting programs or applications that he deemed "were slowing down" the processor.  Now, I understand that too much junk on your computer can certainly slow it down, but Internet speed is a larger concern at the present.  High speed Internet no longer seems like a luxury, rather a necessity with most computer activity taking place online.  It would be an absolute nightmare to switch back to a computer with no Internet, which reminds me how far technology has grew in my lifetime alone.

Another Week of Enlightenment

As we entered our second week of graduate studies, I personally felt a lot more confident in my abilities.  Considering that I have never participated in anything like this cohort (an online program), I was unsure how I would be able to perform on the online assignments.  However, once I sat down and hammered out the tasks, following the rubrics in sequential order, my nervousness was alleviated.  It most certainly is a lot of work to keep up with, but anything worth doing is going to be hard.  To our advantage though, we all of the benefit of leaning on one another for support when it gets very difficult.

However, despite the fact that there is a lot of work, I feel like I'm taking away a lot from the assigned tasks.  I cannot speak on the behalf of the entire cohort, but I have personally taken education classes that felt more like "busy work" than applicable information. 

Starting with the social bookmarking,  I will be able to apply all of our graduate content into my classroom.  Many times I come across a website that I like, and utter the phrase, "I should tell Russ about this (the other high school math teacher)."  Social bookmarking is a great way to mark the site immediately and let Russ take a look for himself.  In terms of online storage, I've never really considered it's application, but it certainly makes sense.  As I'm in the process of setting up a website for my students to use, I'm trying to put a lot of my lesson plans on my computer.  I have been around computers too long to know that all it takes is one virus, or one power outage to lose a whole lot of work.  Storing information on "the cloud" offers a safe backup to saving things on a desktop.  Finally, in terms of using a web cam, as I might be teaching Calculus next year, it will be more than beneficial to be able to hold video conferencing with my students (who will be from multiple school districts).

I hope everyone else is finding their experience beneficial, and look forward to your comments!