All I Needed to Know About Being Tech Savvy, I Learned in Elementary School

I went to Grandparents’ Day at my grandsons’ school only to have an “Ah Ha” moment. The importance of this conference became ever so clear to me when I made a connection between what the teachers are doing there with these young students and what we need to know to simply keep up with our college students’ technological capabilities. First, I spent time in my fourth grader’s class, where during our one-on-one time together, he introduced me to the online stock market applications he and his classmates use to purchase, sell, and tract their investments. Then he showed me the digital story he had created on Booker T Washington. He had enhanced the text with music, pictures – some with animation. By the time I got to the first grader’s classroom, I was sure there would be the usual game playing and reading time. But, no, he took me to the website where he, too, had composed a chapter in a collaborative class narrative. Using Story Maker, each boy had learned to incorporate pictures and music in his chapter for the rest of the class to critique. I felt momentarily like Rip Van Winkle returning to a different world after a twenty-year sleep. But I quickly came back to the rich professional development in technology we are getting through tutorials, synchronous demonstrations, panel and group discussion in this free online conference. Now that I know how to collaborate in Google or conference in Dimdim, paste notes in an alternative way, and voice-over more effectively– all simple orchestrations, I will be going to IT to set up a more functional organization site in Blackboard. If any of the IT people are surfing through, I promise to only use what IT can support.