1. ANDIE BLOGS OFF!

INTO CYBERSPACE

                                       3  2  1  .......

I did it! I'm out there! I'm on air!

This is my very first blog (and my greatest technological achievement!) It is also the first of a sequence of blogs that will attempt to record my experiences and thoughts (good, bad and ugly) about the various uses of information technology that are available to be implemented in the classroom. I am about to embark on a technological voyage of discovery, but I am travelling into an unknown realm of which I have no confidence and zero understanding. I hope it will become easier as I learn to press the right buttons and navigate my way around this dreaded 'machine': easier too, I hope, than the journey I took to get here and write this....
( Bad and Ugly!)

                        Technology isn't hard - Change is hard.

                                                               
I don't like being called a dinosaur or a technophobe..the truth is I just never learnt; I never needed to, until now. In the late 1970's, when I was in the sixth form, computer science was a brand new subject that didn't have any credence as a 'real' subject..it wasn't considered an academic choice like History or English or Chemistry. It was taken alongside subjects like Secretarial Skills and Horticulture..if only we'd known! I remember when 'The Computer' first arrived at our school. Everyone piled in to the new 'Computer Room' to have a look at this strange new beast. It was colossal! It looked like it belonged in Dr Who's Tardis. It took up the entire room; you had to walk around it. It had lots of flashing lights and bright buttons and it made very loud, unsettling noises when it was switched on...but, that was then, and this is now. The classroom has changed beyond recognition since I was taught from the blackboard and chalk, and "have you remembered yer text books?" approach. This is not an excuse as to why I am so technologically inept,this is just background: I need to catch up and switch on!

....but where do I want this journey to take me?

  


I'd like to think that these blogs are going to take me on a voyage of discovery to technical enlightenment. I'd like to be able to say at the end, that it has been an invaluable learning process. One that unveils; layer upon layer of truths (and non truths) about myself as a learner, as a teacher, and of 21st century teaching practises in general. I'd like to think that by the end of this journey, I won't be scared of technology; that I'll have the skills and the 'know how' to be able to create amazing, inspiring things with this 'machine' that, presently, hates me as much as I hate it. I'd like to be able to say," I'm a computer wizard!" or, "I can do it, I'll show you how."

This is just the beginning though, and for now.. this is me.

    ....but WATCH THIS SPACE!