Chapter 7 Reflection

I have to admit that while in grade school I never did encounter the internet. I don’t think we even had internet during those days. But I do remember first being introduced to computers in the sixth grade.

Our computer usage was more for literacy testing in English class. It wasn’t like it is now that elementary school children actually go to computer class to learn how to use it for research and the like. I know my daughter, who is in fifth grade is encourage to do research for little projects her class has to do. I remember when my children started elementary school and I was told that part of the curriculum was using computers not just for testing but for research. I was truly amazed at what my children were learning from the interent. In my day, we didn’t have that. For my own research, we had to do it the old fashion way, looking up books in library using the card catalog or micro-fich for articles. Even doing my research papers when I first entered college was done through book sources only. For my composition class, it was all handwritten or typed on a type writer. We didn’t have word processors. Our technology was extremely limited.

I was not attending school or college when the internet was introduced. Even in college in the late 1980’s computers were limited therefore everything was typed. I was first introduced to the internet in the 1990’s when it was first introduced to the public. I had already graduated from high school in 1985. It was an amazing tool and now it is our life-line I say. We can not do anything without it. Most of the questions that we have can be answered through the internet. Every time my ten year old daughter asks me a question that I do not know the answer to, I tell her to “google it”. Most of our research is now done through internet sources. Now I can see why my college courses were so limited with the assignments back then and how they are much more different now due to the amount of resources we have in our computers.

The only game I remember playing was called an Atari. I can’t even recall when that was first introduced, perhaps late 1980’s but the game was a little ball that would bounce across the screen.
In reflecting on this topic, we have come along way since my days in school. The amount of technology is amazing. Teachers teach with it and students are encouraged to use it to prepare them for their future jobs. In our present day, we are so dependent upon it for our jobs and our daily lives. If we had all this technology when I was in elementary school, I would have much more literate in computers.