DWEDOR: I want to talk about my experience with
technology, my experience with using
computers. So this was like in the early
1980s, my husband had decided that he
was going back to school
after getting a biology degree, a masters
in biology and a bachelors in biology, but you know, though, that
discipline wasn't really working for him. So he
decided he was going to go back to school--maybe
not really decided--I think he was offered to go and
get a computer science degree. So he
took the university up on their
offer, he went back to school and
started from the undergraduate
level. He got a bachelors in computer science.
Meanwhile, I remember that in
early 1980s, that's when you really have
this whole, you know, the
development of a degree in computer
science, and I remember he used to be in
this lab where you had these huge clunky machines even and
every time you looked in his car, there were
these punchcards, and I always wondered what that was.
But, you know, he never explained that to us,
to me and the kids--we were having some kids at the time, and my
husband was like always gone, and so any
time the kids and I wanted to see
him we had to go look for him in the lab.
And so we'll go to lab, and he'll be
so busy writing programs and all that.
But I got into the technology when
he had an opportunity to bring home
computers. And I remember experimenting
on the computers. I remember when
the computer had the--I don't know--
the system that had like GOPHER, and you'd
click a button, and this little man would run
across the screen and go and get
whatever it is you wanted. And I thought
it was fascinating. And that time, the
screen was like green and black.
But I remember him--I remember asking
him, could he please word process my papers for
my composition courses because, of course, the
typewriter was slowly on its way out.
And he had shown me how easy it was to word process a paper with a computer.
But he was busy getting his degree and all that, and he'll
say, "I'll do it," but then I had to sit
there, maybe use the typewriter and
maybe make a lot of mistakes.
So I watched him working on the computer, and after several
days or weeks of showing me what to do,
or just standing by his shoulders, I
learned how to do it myself. So this is
working through 1982, 83, 84,
I'm really getting interested in this
technology, and as the technology
improves, the more I had--the better
access I had, because being a computer
computer science student, he had
an opportunity to bring the machine
home. And so I will work on it day and night, I
will stay up late and work on it. So I
think I'm one of those early adopters of
the technology. And then I begin to
integrate technology into my composition
class slowly, beginning with email and
beginning with having them making sure
that students turn in their word
processing. And at that time we didn't have
the liberation of the [?] on
computers than we have today, so I I was
one of those early adopters. I wanted to make
sure that my students were introduced
to that technology. And that, in a way, made
life easier for me, because I
remember when students would write their
papers--depending on, you know, what their
handwriting looked like, you're not only
grading for what content and everything
else, you're looking at the handwriting and you try
to decipher where they're saying. And
you're teaching four writing classes, and
you're like, "I'm gonna spend twenty- thirty
minutes on this one paper just because I
can't read it, it's so unclear. So the
technology really helps
me to speed up my grading process.
Having, like I said, four writing courses
with about 30 students in each section,
that was a lot. So technology really
helped me through that. And so I've grown with
technology. My dissertation, my PhD
dissertation has to do with
integrating technology into the writing
classroom, where I looked at composition
teachers, how they were doing integration.
And I also look at how writing program
administrators were encouraging
composition teachers to use the
technology. And I did this research in--
what?--2003 when I graduated with my PhD,
and I thought that was.. I found--and you
know, it was 10 years ago, about 10 years
ago? Yeah, almost 11 years now? Yeah,
roughly. That at that time, even though
we're talking about 2003, of course my
research was based five years, five
years earlier, I found that a lot of
composition teachers at that time was
similarly integrating technology into
the classroom and the way I was, so I
feel like I was ahead of the game. And I
have continued to use technology forever.
And I am always looking for--trying to
learn a new tool--whatever it is out
there, I experiment with it. And so going
back to my husband a little bit, he
finally got a masters in computer science, then he got a
PhD in computer science. So the
technology has been the way for us to
sort of have something to talk about
I mean, you know, I'm being in English and he's
being, you know, in computer science, it seemed like there
was not a link, that there was not this
conversation even though both of us are
in the academic field, but when I'm
linking on to the technology, we could
share and talk about what was going on
in the field. So that's my story.