Technology in Today's World

So after spending like 2 hours fixing up my blog so that I am up with the technology world and all that, I am amazed at how far the world has come. I still remember sitting in the basement at my old house telling my mom I was ready to die because CandyLand was not loading fast enough for me to be able to play. Keep in mind the fact that this computer was ONLY on when someone was using it (now the main computer in our house is only turned off when we're out of town or have bad weather/power issues), and it had a printer that had the continuous feed paper - you know what I'm talking about - all the pages were connected and we had to tear it off at the perforated lines. And the edges had those incredibly annoying sidebars of holes so the paper could feed through the printer but you also had to tear those off at the perforated lines. Another fact: CandyLand was not only best game in the world, but it was on the old floppy disk - like the really thin black ones that were flimsy. Haha, now those are unheard of and the disks that replaced them are almost unheard of thanks to CDs and jump/thumb/flash drives. Craziness!!
Thankfully, I grew up in a house that DID have a computer and once we jumped on the technology bandwagon, we stayed on for the whole ride. Because of that, and the fact that all of these changes have been made while I have grown up and I have been forced to adapt, I feel that I am fairly good with technology. In my profession of education, I constantly use technology. I was issued a laptop by my school system and email is an official means of communication at my school. I have three desktop computers in my classroom, a SMARTBoard, a TV with VCR/DVD player, a CD player, and many other things that I can't think of right now. As a Kindergarten teacher in the state of Georgia, I am expected to input student assessment data in an online database on a regular basis. This is a new thing this year, and I never thought I was so smart! Haha... let me explain because that sounds so conceited. This online database does have a pretty strange way of having you input the data, but I think it's to reduce the number of mistakes that could be made. Rather than explain the entire process, let's just say that everyone I work with was really confused about how to put their information into the system. I had everything put in after like 2 hours, and I told someone else this after they told me they had worked on it two weekends in a row. Apparently, they were going one-by-one-by-one, whereas I did class entry for each standard's elements. (I know, I know, that doesn't make much sense, but oh well). Anyways, after explaining my method of entry, my suggestion got passed on to the instructional coaches who are in charge at the system level for this data entry. Apparently, my suggestion then got passed around to the other Kindergarten teachers around the system, and everyone loved it. I had no idea any of this had occurred because it all happened through a series of emails. The instructional coaches saw my dad today and told him that I had saved them because this data system was kicking their butts. They obviously didn't explain how or why to him, so he was asking me, and it made me think about the fact that most Kindergarten teachers in this school system probably didn't grow up using technology the way that I have, so they are really struggling with all of this. Yes, it could probably be made a lot easier, but it's really not that difficult. BUT, I think about all the experience I have had, and it's easy to me only because I've dealt with this type of stuff before - a lot! SO, technology in the world today has really been on my mind lately and made me think about it a lot.
I think I am done messing with my blog layout for now. It was really bad earlier, so if you saw it, I am sorry. I am very pleased with it, and I'm sure there will be things added here and there over time. But for now, I'll turn my focus elsewhere. I am in shock at how much digital scrapbooking has progressed and become very popular. Thankfully, I am really into my hands-on stuff so I'm not interested in all of that - I don't need another interest right now!! ;)
Kristen came home this weekend and we had so much fun. We didn't do much and I didn't get to spend much time with her thanks for high school football, but it was good to just be around her. We went to Andrew's baseball game this morning, and then went shopping! I decided I needed some new shoes for the season. As you may recall, I sprained my foot last winter and my physical therapist was so kind as to point out that it could have been avoided if I had been wearing better shoes. Don't worry - I informed him that it also could have been avoided if policy had been followed and I wasn't having to run in those shoes. I never intended to do my workout of the month in those shoes that day! So anyways, I got some new shoes and we ran to other places also. It was a nice, relaxing Saturday. Sadly, I don't know when I'll get another one. But, I like being busy and having things to do, so I won't complain too much! I hope everyone is having a great weekend!!!