During the
planning stages for transitioning from elementary to high school a number of
things had to be taken into consideration. One of the bigger decisions was what
writing tools would I be using. I had use a typewriter since I was in third
grade but this was no longer going to be beneficial. With moving to a larger
school and having rotation it was decided that I should have a laptop computer.
It was a Toshiba 1000 and I remember how thrilled I was to be going to high
school with my own laptop. In preparation for Grade 9, I took “Introduction to
Keyboarding”, not that I needed to learn how to type but more so I could have
time to familiarize myself with my new computer. I still did all the
assignments required, just instead of using the typewriter I use my laptop. Taking
this course allowed me to get out any of the bugs that I may encounter while
using the computer. One example of this is due to my lack of fine motor
coordination I always hit this one particular button by mistake ALL THE TIME. I
do not recall what button it was, but I do remember that in order to fix the
problem I had to turn the computer on and off again to get it to work. Because
it was the summer there were no technicians around to consult with so the
teacher and I had to problem solve for our self. One of the computer teachers
did come by once or twice to see how things were going and it was then that we
learned the power of the “ESC” button. I no longer needed to turn the computer
on and off when I accidently hit wrong buttons.
As I started
Grade 9 I now had one of the tools I needed to succeed. The computer had at
disk drive and for my class work I would just save my work and then go to the resource
room to print off my work. This wasted a great deal of time having to go back
and forth from classes to resource to have work printed but that was the way it
was. Some teachers allowed me to bring the work the next day which was great as
then I could use my resource time to print off the day’s work as others wanted
it right after class ended. Today it would be a lot different as a students can
just email their work directly to the teacher,
My parents
purchased a Toshiba 1000 for use at home which made it easier in that I did not
have to carry the laptop back and forth. For most students carrying an extra 5
pounds would not be an issue, but for me the extra weight threw me off balance
causing me to fall. Having a laptop both a school and at home meant that I only
needed to bring my disks back and forth.
I used the
laptop for the five years in high school and only a hand full of times did it
break down. Unlike today where a student would hopefully be given a replacement
while their computer was being fixed, I was left with nothing. This meant any
class work I had to do had to either be handwritten by me (which meant it never
got done on time), I would have to go to my resource teacher to have her scribe
for me (which meant time away from the classroom) or I was able to take it home
to finish, which was always my preference.
Again with
another transition (to post-secondary) questions were asked, was the laptop
doing what I needed it to or was it time again to look into a new piece of
technology. In my next blog I’ll talk about my transition to post-secondary and
my first encounter with Dragon.
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