Today Recess Tec traveled to Charleston, Illinois to present a workshop on SMARTBoard Notebook 10 to a great group of teachers. We have done many of these sessions, and although we cover the same basic information, each session is different given the difference in teachers, their personalities, and the subjects and grade levels they teach.
This group provided a very pleasant morning. The lab at Jefferson School was clean, bright, and there were no “equipment malfunctions”. The participants had many questions, but “got it” quickly. The room was often very quiet as they worked and concentrated. This is one of the many things we enjoy very much about our training sessions… to see the different ways teachers use the SMARTBoard, and the lessons they begin to build or download.
Our session closed and Shannon, Ashton and I rewarded ourselves with lunch at one of our favorite restaurants…
Yum…
Both the school and the restaurant are within blocks of my first “home” as a young married bride. My husband was attending Eastern Illinois University on the G.I. Scholarship,
and I was working at Eastern’s Booth House in the Office of Nonacademic Personnel.
I remember when we first moved into the house. It was old then, and divided into three rental apartments for students.
I drove by to see if it was still there. It was. And one of the apartments was for rent… and except for the addition of some vinyl siding, had changed very little.
I remember how excited I was to have a little place to “fix up”…
(And it required MUCH of that!) and how I looked forward to getting a phone hooked up, and to be able to call home from work.
One evening I arrived home and discovered that the telephone man had been there, and he hooked up “our phone”. My first disappointment… It was NOT the phone of my dreams. “Heavy” was not what I had dreamed of.
Black did not fit in with the pastel blue walls, and although pastel blue walls were important, color coordination was the dream.
It had a cloth covered cord… that did not stretch when you pulled on it. A “stretchie” cord was part of the dream.
And the dial. Sigh… It didn’t light up.
It wasn’t a “princess”.
Even back then, technology was important.