I started out as a Vocational Home Economics teacher, in a K-12 school, so I worked with a nine-week "wheel" of seventh graders, and with vocationally tracked junior and senior students for Food Prep and Fashion Design. I had two huge classrooms; one was for academics and the other was a food prep lab with professional equipment, such as slicers, microwaves, convection ovens, mixers, etc.
Then I got my Master's degree in English education and worked in a classroom overlooking a cow pasture. I had a real chalkboard--and not much else. We used the old movie projector reels to show films, and overhead projectors, and Dukanes (film strips and cassette tapes) for anything else. Actually, there was one year the administration pushed System 80's to teach vocabulary. They were record players with punch cards.
Students had to go to the office to use the stationary black phone, with the dial, to make their phone calls. I used a ditto machine for my handouts--copiers were strictly monitored, and they always broke down anyway.
Liz Randall
Longwood, Florida
Six years in public schools, 21 years in the private sector
Related Resources . . .
Adolescents and Digital Literacies This book isn’t about technology. It’s about the teaching practices that technology enables. Sara Kajder examines ways in which teachers and students co-construct new literacies through Web 2.0 technology-infused instructional practices.
Editors Mary T. Christel and Scott Sullivan present a new set of lessons designed to help you integrate a variety of digital applications—Web 2.0 and beyond—into the courses and units you’re already teaching.