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Being a mother of five kids, my computer illiteracy prevailed long past the time it should have because our family resources went to keep the KIDS on wheels and in word processors. I don't know how many on our staff will relate to this predicament, but I am happy to announce that after many years my number four just passed her Nursing State Boards last month, and number five will receive his Chemical Engineering degree in June of 1996 if all goes well. Thus, I have determined that year 1996 will be "The Year of Mother". This means I will finally get my computer updated, which in turn means I will have to learn to use it.
Setting this goal for myself led me to prevail upon some of the others in the department to teach me where to continue. I say where to "continue" because I really started a long time ago. It took me three "Introduction to Computer" courses from Vo-Tech--that's when the Eastern Idaho Technical College was still called Vo-Tech--to realize that a computer really would not catch on fire if I pushed the wrong button. You see, when I was growing up, we still had tubes in our radios and TV's--actually we never had a TV until I was a senior in high school. Nevertheless, the children in our family were warned--no, threatened--about touching buttons because too much flipping of switches "...got everything out of whack", whatever whack is, and would "..burn out the tubes." Additionally, if we bumped these magic machines too often, we may work the tubes loose and cause shorts in the electrical system which could burn up the machine and maybe the house. A toaster fire caused from an electrical short at my early age may have made me an unchallenging believer, but being the good obedient child that I am, I never disputed this parental notion. My own kids monopolized Wormy and Pac Man on our Texas Instruments Computer when my husband finally indulged our household, so until I went to Vo-Tech I carried my earlier preconceptions and emotions with me.
Fortunately, in my search for department knowledge, Brother Hackworth invited me to attend his Computer Composition class, which I did do. I'm afraid it became a case of my eyes being bigger than my stomach, for I fancied tons of ways I could apply his knowledge if I could only hang onto it. Boy, could the computer make my life easier, if I could just figure out how to apply what I was seeing. Brother Hackworth was patient. Over and over, he would explain the same answers to me until I finally was smart enough to ask the right question to make the information kick in. I began using his ideas and programs to solve my problems. When I commented, "I'm stealing hours and hours of your work." He always responded, "That's okay. I hope it will make your life easier." I discovered Brother Hackworth was serving others the same way. He had already put his personal program for grammar reinforcement onto the library computers. Reinforcement grammar drills on computer! Think of what that could mean to a teacher of the low skills students. Think of what that could mean to any teacher who has a struggling low skills student in the classroom. With a computerized teacher for grammar, the classroom could be freed up for more excellence in writing skills. It was a "Golden" idea.
I wanted this for myself, but one concern hung over my head. How was I going to know that my student does what I assign, and how can I see that improvement actually is taking place if the work is done in the library. Of course there are tests, but I didn't want to use classroom time for a constant barrage of tests, especially when students may be at different drill levels. Again Brother Hackworth came to my rescue. The computer network now carries a line to the English Computer room which I can pull into my office with a flip of the switch. All I need is to log my students on the program from the Smith building and be sure they work on a Windows machine in the library. Technically, there are two servers involved. The one on Dos only shows scores in the library, but the one on Windows comes over to the Smith building. If the student uses the Windows machine in the library for the program, I can make the assignment in the classroom and call up their report card right in my office after the allowed time to see what they have achieved. What a wonderful tool for any student struggling with low grammar skills.
The last step was to write up an instruction sheet to send with the students in case the computer intimidated them as it used to intimidate me. The sheet could be shared with aids in the library in case knowledge of the program is lacked by the aid. For this instruction sheet, I contracted a student tutor, Dianna Willis, who agreed to walk through the very steps the student would have to follow and describe them on paper in student language so that the instructions would feel REAL. This instruction sheet is critical to the success of this endeavor.
I launched my effort with my 111 students at the beginning of this semester and have received only positive reports from them. The classroom provided sentence combining drill to accompany the library grammar drills. The stat sheet I also require of student writing from another computer program has shown the writing level average of the class has jumped two grade levels since the beginning of the term. While the class instruction has been good, I feel the computer support in grammar has allowed us to accomplish twice as much. I feel the credit for this success belongs to Master Hackworth, but I add my testimony that IT WORKS FOR ME.