My Story Mountain... Uh Oh!

Uh.. oh! It had been almost five years since I had been on campus. I drove into the parking lot and knew right away things had changed. Where did those buildings come from, I wondered? I parked and made my way to Mercy Hall already feeling overwhelmed. How on earth am I going to get through five more courses while I'm working full-time. What about Vinny and Evan? I have two boys at home who need me? My uh.. oh gets worse. I walk into class and see that ninety percent of the students are at least 15 years younger than I am. I studied them as they popped open their laptops like it was as natural as me pulling out my 3 ring binder. No laptop here. I asked myself, "Do they take notes on their laptops? Ugh, I hope I remembered to bring a pen... Could it be hotter in here?" I was not looking forward to taking this course. It was 6:45 in the evening and I'm normally in bed by 8:30 sharp! Pj's on and book in my lap winding down the day. Class doesn't finish until after nine. One foot in front of the other, I remind myself. You will get through this course without having a major breakdown and crying fits. It gets worse. The professor introduces herself and zeros in on me. She innocently asks, "Where is your laptop, this is a technology course?"  I respond with an answer before thinking it through. "Oh I didn't know it was a requirement." That was the moment I felt like I was about one hundred and fifty years old and completely non relevant.

That was my first night in EDUC 584. Since then, I have combed through the syllabus, stressed about the projects, purchased a two hundred dollar Chrome book, read a few chapters, and began blogging. Wait... What... I blog? If you had told me two weeks ago that I would be blogging, I would have shunned you for over estimating my natural born talents. I'm that one person in generation x that can barely power up a computer, especially if it isn't a Mac. I have always struggled with technology. I avoid it like the plague. I can't even type properly. Ironically, in my first profession I sat at a computer all day designing impressive brochures on 120 lb. gloss stock with varnishes, die-cuts, the whole nine yards. But still, I'm far from being a techie and I cannot trouble shoot to save my life. I would motion to the IT guy and he'd rolls his eyes. So, what I think I am trying to say is... I'm almost hopeful. There, I said hope!  Maybe I can learn to not be so afraid of technology. I figured out blogging. If I take deep breaths and try to be patient, I may actually get something out of this course. After all, if I'm going to be missing out on my normal Monday night bed time, I want to gain some tech skills that will really help me in the classroom. I want to be a successful teacher for my students even if it means spending hours cataloging URLs and digitally annotating documents. Oh my gosh, I just want to be relevant again!