Educational Audiovisual Technology I Have Known
I almost titled this post “The History of Educational Audiovisual Technology,” but that would be inaccurate. This is not a scholarly, researched treatise; it is merely a recollection of AV equipment used during my school days and also equipment I used during my teaching years.
I’ll start with my memories from the parochial school I attended from kindergarten through eighth grade, 1957-1966. Occasionally we’d all file into the auditorium to watch movies that someone thought would be educational. Sister Dora would roll out the school’s large movie projector and thread the film from a giant reel through the little grabber gears behind the big lens and into an empty reel below. Sometimes the reel would be so filled to the edge that the film spilled off the reel, and we had to wait while Sister struggled to respool it all. And afterward, she had to rewind the movie at high speed back onto the original reel.
I remember a lot of World War II-era newsreels of the sort that were shown in movie theaters before the feature film. These showed footage of battles and of interviews with soldiers, officers, and impacted Europeans and Pacific Islanders, and families of US military members. We also watched some nature documentaries, which I found infinitely more interesting. And once in a great while, we might actually get to see a Disney animated movie with no educational value whatsoever.
In high school, instead of whole-school viewings in the auditorium, we often watched curriculum-related movies in the classroom (such as “Pithing the Frog” in biology class). So that the teachers could concentrate on presenting the material rather than trying to remember how to run the projector, the school had an AV Club, made up mostly of nerds (think eyeglasses, button-down shirts and pocket protectors) who volunteered to spend their study periods operating the current technology.
During my first teaching career (1974-1978), the only classroom technology we had in my under-funded district was filmstrips. (I have a vague memory of seeing filmstrips when I was in grade school.) In my music classroom I had a few illustrated filmstrips depicting scenes from various pieces of program music, such as Peter and the Wolf and the Peer Gynt Suite. I had to reserve the filmstrip projector, and I played the accompanying vinyl record (actually, they were thicker and very brittle, so whatever came before vinyl—shellac, maybe?), advancing the filmstrip one image each time a little bell rang on the recording.
By the time my second teaching career rolled around (2006-2014), technology had advanced by leaps and bounds and every teacher had his/her own classroom computer with a DVD drive. A projector was mounted on the classroom ceiling, which could be paired with a VCR or the computer. I had a whole library of video cassettes related to the elementary music curriculum dating back to the 1980s, and I also had a number of DVDs and all of YouTube to draw from. Good times.
But one of the best innovations ever was PowerPoint. One of the professional development classes I took during that time was a PowerPoint workshop. I learned how to make and update a presentation. I could make my own visual aids and save them, so that I didn’t have to write, erase, and rewrite all the information for all my classes on the white board. Also, we had great collaboration in our district—teachers often shared the PowerPoints they created. I also found some posted online. I could edit them so they’d reflect exactly what I wanted to teach my students. I had a wonderful presentation about the Star Spangled Banner that I found online and added to, that included all sorts of information on the War of 1812. I used that for my patriotic unit for grade four general music.
Now it’s your turn. What sorts of audiovisual equipment do you remember from your days as a student or teacher? Or what new technologies have been developed for education? (I’ve been out of the classroom for almost a decade now—I’d love to know about new goodies.) Or what kind of viewing technology do you use in your own home? Please share in the comments below.
Video of the Day: Instead of Playing Video Games
Gorgeous heart-felt performance. I also love the younger little brother in the background.
The Joy of Doing Laundry
When my five children were growing up, laundry was a never-ending chore. I did at least two loads of wash every day. And whenever a child grew tall enough to reach the bottom of the washing machine, I initiated him/her into the workings of the laundry room and assigned a day of the week for said child to launder his/her own clothes.
Shortly after I returned to teaching, Greg retired. Our children were mostly out on their own, and I was only doing laundry for the two of us. But it really annoyed me if, after a long day of teaching, he’d ask me to find a particular item of his clothing. Usually, it was in the washing machine waiting to be put in the dryer—which was full of dry clothes waiting to be put away.
Suddenly, it occurred to me—he was home all day with nothing in particular to do.
I bought him his own clothes hamper and told him his clothes were now his responsibility.
Not long after I retired, Greg’s strength and balance and mobility waned, and his clothing was once again my responsibility, but without the stress and obligations of a full-time teaching job, laundry became less of a burden and a little bit of a—dare I say it?—a joy.
I have a lot of nice clothes. Most of them date back to when I was teaching (I retired eleven years ago, so they’re not very new or trendy), but they’re still in good condition. In the interest of keeping my closet from being overstuffed, I used to give away 10% of my clothes to Goodwill every year, but then I discovered what happens to clothing given to thrift stores.
I thought I was being virtuous, giving away clothing I really liked. I think the answer is to give clothing directly to people you know need them and want to wear them; that or simply not buy so many clothes for myself. I now only buy a few items a year, as things wear out.
As I sort or fold or hang laundry, I am reminded of the circumstances for which I bought the clothes: a flag t-shirt from Old Navy to wear for a patriotic program at school; a dress for a wedding; something red to wear at church on Reformation Sunday. Good times.
Or I just enjoy the colors. At one time, almost everything I owned was black, because if something was available in twelve colors and I tried every one on, the black one always looked the best on me. One day someone commented that I always wear black, and I realized I needed to put a little color into my wardrobe. I love blue, every shade from navy to royal to turquoise. Back in the 1980s, I had my “season” done. It turns out I’m a “winter.” I should wear black, red (though I look best in burgundy), and jewel tones. I don’t look good in yellow or orange or pastels, so I avoid those, though I looked fine in them when I was young (and weighed about 50 pounds less).
Now it’s your turn. How do you feel about doing the laundry? Do you have a Mount Washmore threatening to take over your home? Do you have to drive everything to the laundromat and spend your day off there? Do you use solar power (maybe an outdoor clothesline) to dry your clothes? (Been there, done that. In Arizona, by the time you hang out all the sheets, the first ones you hung are already dry, so you take them all down again. And they smell so good!) Do you use the dissolvable detergent sheets instead of jug detergent? (Are they good?) Do you iron? (Not if I can get away without it!) Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Three Reviews: Last Night in Montreal, The Book of Delights, and Life as a Teenage Superhero
Last Night in Montreal is a novel by Emily St. John Mandel, whom I mentioned in Friday’s article about authors I’m obsessed with.
When Lilia was a small child, her father kidnapped her in the middle of the night and drove her across the Canadian border into the United States. They spent the next decade driving together, criss-crossing the US over and over, never staying in any one place for long, frequently changing their car, their appearances, and their names, fleeing the investigator undoubtedly following them.
When Lilia was sixteen, her father met someone with whom he wanted to settle down, but Lilia was restless. Life on the road was all she knew; it’s what felt normal and right to her. And so she went off on her own, but checking in regularly with her father and his new wife.
Last Night is a story about secrets and obsession, and about how they destroy lives. Chapters set in the current time alternate with chapters from the past. Questions—such as, why did Lilia’s father take her away?—remain unanswered until the very end of the book. Although everything is wrapped up in the end, this is not a story with a happy ending. It’s a masterfully-written book that will haunt you.
The Book of Delights is a project by Ross Gay, a challenge he gave himself, to spend a year writing a daily essay about something something delightful. The result is a collection of 102 essays.
I wish I could say this book was a delight to read. Some of the essays are nice, and a few are legitimately delightful. The one I like best is #87, “Loitering.”
But my disillusionment with the book came early. Essay #17 was about a very disturbing dream Gay had. If he had just mentioned the disturbing part and moved on, it wouldn’t have been so bad. But he repeated the phrase (including the verb f***ing followed by the person you’d be most ashamed of doing that to) four more times.
In fact, several of the essays were ruined for me by the repetition of objectionable words. If use of distasteful words is not your cup of tea, you’d be better off skipping this one.
Life as a Teenage Superhero by John Bucholtz. I’m not particularly into the whole superhero genre, but I loved this book. It is the “Episode 1 Pilot” for the series The Guardian Chronicles.
High school student Corey McGregor notices on returning home from school that his dad’s car is in the driveway. That’s good, because he has some exciting news to tell him. But as he gets closer to the front door, he realizes it is splintered and hanging from one hinge. He enters the house calling and searching for his dad, but no one answers—his dad is not there.
He hears footfalls downstairs and goes to investigate, and finds someone dressed as Shoto, a villain from a comic book he follows. Shoto knows who has taken his father and promises to help, though Cory doesn’t believe he can trust the villain. Shoto leaves and is replaced by Slipstream and Blur, two heroes from the PLH—the Pacific League of Heroes. They promise Cory they’ll protect him and find his father.
They also tell him a secret—his father works for the PLH.
There are more secrets and surprises revealed throughout the fast-paced, action-packed book. Sometimes the bad guys seem undefeatable, and there are tragic setbacks, but comic relief grants us respites, and the ending vindicates Cory. I read this on the Kindle app on my phone at my husband’s physical therapy appointments. Totally worth the read, for readers ages 10-110.
Authors and Fiction Series I’m Addicted To
If you force me to name my favorite author, I’d probably say John Grisham. Whenever he has a new book out, I buy it. I am occasionally disappointed, but not often. His consistent excellence puts him at the top of my list. I prefer his legal dramas; I’m not interested in sports. His characters have flaws, but if they do the wrong thing, it’s usually for a good reason.
I follow several series, always buying the next installment. Sometimes I’ll buy other books by the author, but if it’s not part of the beloved series, I might not have that feeling of investment.
I will always buy the next Stephanie Plum book by Janet Evanovich. These are not great literary masterpieces, but they are funny as heck, and I love the characters. I’ve read several Evanovich offerings not in this series, and they are good, but I’ll usually give them away when I’m done, whereas I can see myself going back and rereading the Plum books again and again.
I will always buy the next Kay Scarpetta book by Patricia Cornwell, even though some of them are very dense, in that the events of a day can take 400 pages to recount. But I still have to have them. I feel like I personally know the characters, and I like being inside Kay’s head as she figures everything out.
I also felt that way about Sue Grafton’s alphabet mysteries. I love Kinsey and her landlord and his brother and Rosie. I can picture the garage apartment and the neighborhood in Santa Teresa. And when Grafton died in 2017, I mourned that I would never read her Z book.
Other authors that I’ve followed in the past: Michael Crichton—his fiction helps me understand scientific principles. Dan Brown—I love his books’ connections to art and architecture. Anne Tyler—her quirky characters. Jan Karon–the Mitford series. Anne Lamott’s autobiographical nonfiction, until I noticed she keeps telling the same stories over and over.
I like the YA and MG books by these authors: Abigail Johnson, Kelly DeVos, Shonna Slayton, Sara Fujimura, Dusty Bowling, Paul Mosier.
Authors that I want to read more of: Celeste Ng and Emily St. John Mandel—their novels haunt me.
These are the authors who come to mind when I think of my reading addictions, but I’m sure I’ve missed a few.
Now it’s your turn. Who are the authors whose new books you just have to read? What is it about their work that you love? Share in the comments below.
Allison Boley
Carol Boley
dgood648
Joy
Andrea R Huelsenbeck
Betty Mason Arthurs
Linda Carlblom
Peggy Levesque
tuesdayschildren100
Judy Robertson
Doing Life Together 