One of my additional jobs a tech contact for my building is that I plan and present technology training for other teachers. I really am enjoying this part of the job even though adds many hours in prep that I wouldn’t normally do.
Today I had another workshop that I was co-presenting with a tech contact from another building. The last half of our presentation was hands-on, allowing teachers to explore some of the things that we were talking about.
Just like the students that come into my class, these teachers come to the workshop with varying degrees of technology knowledge. There are a couple of teachers in the district that have little or no knowledge of what a computer is. It can be difficult to have one of those teachers in your workshop, especially if it has a hands-on component. We had one such teacher in our workshop today.
Now this teacher is quite a character. She has been know to talk through meetings at a normal talking voice. Just like she did during the first half of our presentation. Her normal operating procedure for workshops like mine: talk through the information/instruction section and then expect one on one attention during the hands-on section. And so it was today.
“Young man! Young man!” She motioned to me. “Now what I am I supposed to do.”
“Well just open your web browser and you can take a look at some of these sites that we talked about and see if you could use them in your class.”
“So…. I do that how?”
“Well just move your mouse over to that blue E and click twice.”
“With what?”
“With the mouse. Use the mouse and double click on that blue E.”
She gave me a blank stare. I knew then that this was going to be a long afternoon.
After about fifteen minutes we had the web browser open. We looked at a few pages and then she wanted to go back to the previous website that she was at.
“Just use the back button. Near the top of the screen, there is an arrow with the word under it that says back.”
“Where! Where! Oh look! There it is! Now how do I get there?”
“Use your mouse.”
“Oh yes! That lovely little mouse. What a funny name! Now where is that blasted pointer.” Then whispering to me, “I can’t see out of one of my eyes, I don’t tell many people that cause they will think that I am a freak.” She hits the back button finally and up pops the page that she had been on. “OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Look at that! I did good! Oh you naughty boy, you’re such a naughty boy! I did it! Oh you are naughty!”
It is at this point that I have to turn to prevent laughing in her face. I have been called many things but naughty boy hasn’t referred to me since I was a little boy.
She then would write down, word for word, exactly what I was saying for directions on using the back button. She didn’t like it when I would rephrase what I was saying.
We later went on to master the scroll bar to which she squealed, “Oh you naughty boy! You have been naughty!”
Next we tackled the scroll wheel on the mouse. “Weee! I did it! You are such a naughty boy!”
Then the “X” button to close a program, “Naughty, naughty, naughty.”
At the conclusion of the workshop, “Oh I learned so much. I learned! About computers!” Then to me, “Young man, what is your name?” I told her and she wrote it down. “Well I am going to tell an administrator how wonderful this was and how wonderful you where.”
Thinking to myself that I hope she doesn’t tell them how naughty I was. “Thank you.”
Now a few things: 1) I am not exaggerating at all. You will just have to take my word for it. Really. 2) She was completely serious. She wasn’t joking at all.
I laughed for a good fifteen minutes after the workshop.
Class dismissed, you naughty reader!
Ah future posting. Gotta love it. This entry will appear at noon CST (if all goes as planned). This is the beginning of the 
The only problem was that this fundraising organization doesn’t seem to have all their eggs in a row. The people that came to each room included a woman who is unaware of basic grammatical rules and a man in an ill-fitting chicken suit. The kids weren’t sure what to think about all this.
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