Technology Autobiography

 It's All about Perspective
     When I tell people that I remember telephone party lines, most smile in a confused way. Was that some mass way of gathering friends, a game played at a celebration, or a communal line that allowed you to listen in on your neighbors and they you? Drum roll...the latter. At the same time, the telephone number prefixes were actually letters. I was just wondering how many I remember: Bigelow and  Lasalle were two. Needless to say, there were no area codes, no zip codes either.
    All this speaks to the fact that the changes I've seen in technology are vast and, at times, overwhelming. When the first Macintosh computer managed to squirrel its way into my home, I was beyond resistant. I could not see any reason for it. In marketing, I would have been known as a laggard, a late adopter to be sure.

    Fast forward years, the children are grown; innovation has intruded into my life whether I embraced it or not. During the teenage years, it was so hard to stay one step ahead in the myspace world. Every time I turned around, the world seemed to be inventing a new way for my children to subvert my authority! (Rebellion was so much more open in the sixties and seventies!)
     In business, the corporations provided all the program specific training necessary to accomplish whatever task was needed. The company would acquire some specialized software and provide all the training necessary for the worker bees to make it money. That was never much of a challenge.
     Then I got the brilliant idea that the Lord was calling me to teach, to leave a rewarding job with a solid income and take a vow of poverty to teach in a Christian school. That was nine years ago.
    I love teaching; I love the students, the work, the efforts, the time, the people, and in my new job as principal of Good Shepherd Christian Academy, I am the technology leader! WHAT?
     That is what I mean by perspective. In my previous incarnations, I have been the laggard, the reluctant learner, the one who barely tolerates the tech.  Then I joined an organization in which many were refusing to use e-mail. I was seen as the upstart trying to push these new-fangled ways on everyone! The irony!
     I have found that the Lord has allowed me to learn that lesson many times in my life. The things I have fought against, criticized, at times demonized, He seems to put in my life in some other way and tells me to reconsider, review, and reflect.
    Now, I am arranging training on google docs to improve our record keeping and lesson planning. I am teaching others how to use the projector and bring in PowerPoint and YouTube videos in the classroom.  And, perhaps. you can guess how much resistance I have run into. It is the ultimate irony that I would be in the position of forcing people to try to keep up with the times. But I am deeply grateful to my Christian, brilliant, patient friends who are willing to train me and prepare me to teach others. Finally, just wait until I complete this course; there will be a mutiny in Duxbury!