On Visiting Paul Ecke Central Elementary School:

If the iPad is the answer; the question is: what serves as evidence that education is changing? I was born in the year 1984. I was in the 6^th grade when I first used a computer, in the year 1996. I used it to type up a report on Hera, queen of the gods. I recall feeling very scared, I didn’t receive the best instructions on how to use the computer and was nervous about pressing wrong buttons or not being on task. There were only about three or four computer monitors in the classroom, and we had to type hurriedly. A couple of years later, around 1998, I was in middle school. The school allowed students to come into the computer lab during lunch to play online. I had no idea what the internet was, or that you could look stuff up, or that various games were beginning to be played online by students. I just knew that nerdy kids went into the computer labs. There were absolutely no assignments that needed to be typed so I didn’t really use computers. I loved to read R.L. Stine’s Fear street books and various other great writers at this time. The Librarian had a computer filled with tests, and I would volunteer to take these tests for points. These tests were brought up on a computer by the Librarian, I would plug in my answers, and then she would log me out. That was my only contact with a computer. That was the year that my mother purchased a cell phone. The next time I would come into any contact with a computer was in the year 2000. I joined my high school journalism class, mostly because my friends were in it. I was to write a story for our October edition. I was to write on Hotel Del Coronado’s ghost, Kate Morgan. I was so naïve that I actually thought I would have to take the bus down to the hotel and interview workers and guests and whoever could tell me more about the legend of Kate Morgan. My friends weren’t much help, and I was too embarrassed to admit that I didn’t know how to start my story. Victoria, a nerdy girl (I know I was mean) helped me. She introduced me to yahoo.com. She helped me create an email account, she helped me look up information online, and she helped me see that I can find anything I want online. And she was right! Homework was no longer as difficult after that. I began actually wanting a computer after that. I took a typing class and learned how to type faster. By the time I was in college, I was writing papers regularly in the school’s computer lab. Then my niece introduced me to MySpace, and I began logging online more often. Then in the year 2009, my grandmother gave me a laptop for my birthday because I was doing so well in school. My friends hooked me up with a Facebook account and that is how I began connecting with people online. My boyfriend bought me my first smartphone and taught me how to use Facebook through my phone and he showed me how to look for videos on YouTube. I thought I was set, until I enrolled in this class. This class introduced me to completely different virtual possibilities. So many constant changes; and these changes will continue to baffle me. But these students at Paul Ecke Central Elementary School are professionals of change. Not only are they learning how to use iPads and the various apps that they offer, but they are capable of adapting to the constant updates and changes that come with these apps. They are becoming professionals of change. They are in so much more control at age 5 than I was at age 12. They are becoming professionals of what they present and study rather than just observers or learners, they are actors and creators. The iPad is an example of how they are capable of demonstrating just how strong they are with creating change and adapting to it.