First Impressions

So....my first impressions of Educational Psychology were a bit daunting. But it had little to do with the actual content of the class. When I graduated the first time, I was a few credits away from a double major with one being in psychology. This class would come easy for me..I thought. It would be kind of a "break" from teaching all year. But my undergraduate degree was completed almost two decades ago, and well..things have certainly changed. For one, checking my mail did not require "logging on" but a walk to the campus post office. And outside of class communication with the professor was rare and only took place by appointment...usually set up by land-line if you were lucky enough to catch them in the office. Class notes were taken by hand with stacks of spiral notebooks filled with notes, lists and doodles by the end of a semester. And a research paper...well, it began with a search through a dusty card catalog and hopefully some assistance from the main "search engine"...the librarian...often to be found filing a National Geographic among the thousands of periodicals. And the completed paper...it was not "posted" to be read and graded but had to be hand-written and then typed by someone on campus who provided "typing services"...usually at a couple of dollars per page. Then, the one..and usually only...copy was carefully delivered on-foot before being critiqued in red ink.  And what really is a "blog" anyway? If you had asked me in 1993, I would have guessed that it was a lesson that I missed in microbiology class...maybe as I was busy catching up with my classmates as there was no Facebook, Twitter...or even a cell phone. So...to walk into this partially "virtual" classroom...I must admit that it threw me a bit. However, as I looked at the "on-line" syllabus and I read my first emails from my professor, my nerves began to settle. I realized that I am well-supported by actual living and breathing human beings in this virtual new world. I also realized that some of these educational issues and obstacles that we all face as educators have not changed much since the first one-room school. So... after figuring out how to navigate through this unfamiliar territory, I am beginning to get excited to learn from those who have taught before me. I look forward to applying what I learn in my own classroom.  And I am also even...maybe...a little bit excited about these new technological modes of communication/learning right at my fingertips.