Bud the Teacher

    Last May, my school board approved an allocation to purchase a wireless laptop cart/mobile computer lab for our school.  This was exciting, because we were, at the time, working on a small package of professional development around incorporating technology into our instruction.  Teachers who were excited to experiment with technology couldn’t always make it into the computer lab.  This mobile lab was supposed to make it possible for those teachers and the more experienced teachers in our school to have access to technology at the same time for a variety of purposes.
    We don’t have a school library, and the district has some handy online research resources that we can use, when we’re on computers.  Adding technology was exciting because we were going to be using it in some pretty meaningful ways.  I had intended to begin blogging in several of my courses with students.  I was excited that we would be able to write online together several times a week, if not every day.   The additional access to computers was really a big piece of what I thought I needed to be successful, as I felt and still feel that the best way to create a community of writers is to find ways to publish with them regularly.
    Unfortunately, I’m still waiting for those computers.  The staff’s excitement is long gone.  Promises made by district technology personnel were broken repeatedly.  My administrators went to bat for us again and again — and their requests were met with deaf ears.  Our technology staff is overworked and understaffed.   
    The long and short of it?  The $30,000 worth of laptop computers that I ordered in December and that arrived in the district in January are sitting somewhere offsite gathering dust. A laptop cart with space for 24 computers sits in my classroom, and we stack books on it.   The SMARTBoard that was purchased for my classroom sits in the hallway outside my classroom, still in the box, where it will most likely sit until summer.  A box containing a ceiling mount projector is sitting next to the trashcan in my classroom.  At least we can put trash in the trashcan.  The box is just in the way.
    This angers me somewhat.  I considered naming names in this post, and just railing and fuming about all of my frustrations.  but frankly, while that would feel good for all of five minutes, it wouldn’t fix anything. We’d still be missing computers and there would really be no reason for anyone to hurry up and get them to us.  And, I’ve found, it’s always easier to blame and point and jump up and down than it is to get going on a project in spite of an extra obstacle or two (or twenty).  Of course, it’s taken me most of a year to get to that realization in this particular circumstance. 
    I’m done waiting. 
    On Monday, I’ll begin my speech class.  I haven’t taught speech in a while.  We’ll be blogging as a major component of this course, despite the lack of access.  It might fail miserably (and not just because of technology accessibility).  Then again, it might not.  Perhaps I was using the lack of tech as an excuse or a mask for my fears about taking blogging to the next step in my classes.  My students regularly post their thoughts to Moodle.  Now,  they’ll be going public.   
    If we can get into the computer lab, of course.