Wishtrip Map

I did a Wishtrip map for a vacation I'd love to take one summer.  One of the perks of being a teacher is the summer, when I have over a month of time off to work on whatever I want.  I'd love to take this trip:



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I've been to all of these places at least once, but I'd love to see them again.  Spending four or five days at each one would be ideal.  The only thing holding me back is the cost.  I don't even want to think about how much it would cost.  Thousands and thousands of dollars.  

New resume blurb.

I have a passion for instructional technology.  I have formally studied computer engineering, computer programming, and networking.  I can utilize cutting edge tools such as Twitter, Tumblr, and other social networking sites to improve learning and retention at your institution.  I understand the role technology plays in the future, and I can prepare your students to succeed after graduation.

I did it.

Well, I tied the worlds together, so to speak.

I like video games.  I don't think I've done a good job hiding it (not that I've really tried).  One issue I've had is finding a physical store where I can buy used old games.  I don't mind buying them from Amazon and Ebay, but there's something special about walking into a brick and mortar store and chatting with someone who loves the product so much they're trying to make a living off of it.

I finally found one called Lost Ark in Greensboro because of Jeff, the guy I'm pictured with.  I was asking on arstechnica.com about local video game stores and this guy popped up with an answer.  Lost Ark was having a pinball tournament this past weekend so we decided to meet there.

All in all this wasn't a tough project once I got started.  I wasn't comfortable just meeting someone at a restaurant or something, but a store in Greensboro where we weren't forced to sit across from each other was perfect. 

He's much better at pinball than me, but I did better at House of the Dead.

Southeast Trip

Map

Project Gutenberg

I love to read.  It's pure escapism to me.  I spend my day inside teaching history, so when I'm free I like to walk somewhere quiet, sit under a tree, and read.  The more fantastic the better.

When Project Gutenberg was envisioned in the late 90s I got excited.  They were going to be a collection of all public domain works that anyone could browse and download.  Today they have over 38,000 free books in HTML, epub, Kindle, Nook and other formats.  In less than 5 minutes I can read Alexadre Dumas' catalog on my Kindle for free. 

As a teacher this is invaluable.  I don't have to buy books anymore.  If I'm discussing the Reformation I can pull quotes from many of Luther's works.  I could also turn my students loose and have them find their own quotes.  Because Gutenberg checks copyright status, I can freely use any part of any of their books in any way I choose.

Here is one of my favorite books - The Three Musketeers

Project Ideas

Here are my three project ideas:

Fun group - Skit using Google Hangouts.  We've hammered out some of the (very) early details but we probably need another meeting this week to all get on the same track.

Serious group - Tutorials of Web 2.0 tools.  Each of us could make a tutorial which we would then share we each other and future classes.  I know having a brief tutorial, video or text, would make me more willing to use tools I didn't know a  lot about.

Fun individual - YouTube review of Shadowgate for the NES.  I'm going to play Shadowgate and give it a modern style video review and then host it on YouTube.

Thoughts?

Couchsurfing

Coursurfing.org is a very interesting site.  I'll give it a brief review here:

The Good:

• Great UI (except for one thing; see below) - Appealing colors, easy to navigate, all pertinent information is on the front page.
•  A group for everyone, literally.  I found one group that likes French cooking, one that likes English soccer, and one that likes to kayak.
•  Lots to do, even if you don't want to share your couch.  CS is a lot more activity oriented than things like Facebook.
• It allows users to browse through profiles, something most social network sites don't allow.
• Facebook integration saved me from creating yet another login.
• Amazingly international.

The Bad:

• There is no simple way to find people. I literally stumbled upon another teacher at my school. Finding D.I. took about 30 minutes.

Overall this is a good service.  I think this is one I'll be sticking with over the years.

Objectives Redux

• A concise definition of Web 2.0
  I feel like I met this one.  I really liked the exercise where we built a definition together.  The formal definition may be fluid, but all Web 2.0 technologies involve collaboration, teamwork, and usability, in some fashion.
  
• Clear understanding of Web 2.0 technologies
  This I checked off with all of the different programs we've explored in this class.  Everything from audio, video, and picture sites, as well as social networks, both formal and informal.
  
• Practical classroom applications of said technologies
  This I've had to invent as I went.  A lot of thse technologies have very clear classroom applications (what' better, writing an essay or a wikipedia entry?), but working in a modern day public school really puts limits on what my kids can do and when.  Did you know that I'm breaking board policy by tweeting with my students, which is public, but that I'm allowed to talk with them on their personal cell phones every night?
  
• An understanding of social media limitations in public schools (primarily legal concerns)
  I'm learning that this is impossible to gauge because every system sets up their own rules.
  
• The technical know-how to troubleshoot potential problems
  As Mandi said, so many of these programs are user friendly enough that I haven't run in to any problems.  Any problems that may exist are usually on their end and I can't fix them anyway.

Weekly Video #5

Here's my next video.  I made this for my Multimedia class and figured I would share it here too.

Weekly videos #3 and #4

I've had some trouble with YouTube (all on me, not them), but I've finally got my next 2 weekly videos uploaded.

This one, from February 26th, is my family playing on the swing in our front yard.

This one, from today (March 5th), is just some rambling while my son sleeps off a cold.

YouTube - Weekly Video #2

To me, YouTube is the benchmark for content uploads.  If a site is slower or less intuitive, then it's not worth using.  Creating an account was simple, especially considering they are linked with Google now.  Uploading is easy as well.

SoundCloud

Audio Recording on Monday morning

I must say, SoundCloud is a great site. Uploading is as easy as it is on YouTube and they even have a built in recorder. Creating a quick and simple audio message couldn't be easier. I was about 4 clicks away from recording my file and getting it uploaded.

Sharing was as easy as it was on Flickr. Blogger is big enough that both of those sites can share with it very easily. All I had to do was click on "share" and then start typing this post. It opened in another window and everything. SoundCloud seems like something I'll be using far into the future.

space

space, a photo by instantdonut on Flickr.

Here's a cool picture that I was able to find on Flickr.  I had trouble finding something that was completely open to share, but I did find a group of pictures that were free except for attribution, so as long as I tell who created the original picture I could display it or even change it if I wanted.

If I were to take a picture or create a video, I think I'd share it under the same license.  As long as I was given credit for it's creation, people could share it.  I make my money from teaching; I'm not sure how to make money from art.  However, if someone can figure out how to make money from one of my pictures, by including it on packaging or on a webpage, then more power to them.  If I spent a lot of time on a video/picture though and I did have plans to monetize it, I would license it.

I imagine that's what this artist did as well.  They created something that other people would enjoy.  By making it open to share, more people can enjoy it and their name is spread a bit further.  It sounds like win-win to me. 

Mid-point Course Reflection

Teaching an online class is difficult.  It's easy for a professor to stand in front of and talk off the cuff about a topic they know a lot about (and I've been in a few of those classes).  It's harder when the course is taught online.  Sure, the professor could just write what they were going to say, but we all know people have limits to what they're willing to read.  How many multiple page articles have you started online and never finished?  A computer screen just isn't conducive to reading a lot of information.

However, finding a video of someone like Michael Wesch who is giving a lecture that includes video and graphics, which is much easier to pay attention to.  In addition, having an hour long lecture that can be stopped, started, and restarted on your own schedule is another positive that does not exist in a physical classroom.  You were too sick to attend the lecture?  Sorry, I guess you'll have to borrow notes from someone else.  That's just an example of a problem that can be avoided by working online.

With that said, there are some drawbacks to online learning.  First, it takes a while to master.  Learning how to create a video of a certain quality is difficult and requires more planning.  Instead of learning a few pieces of software (PowerPoint, prezi, etc), online learning requires the use of many different programs, both online and off.  For this one class I have established accounts with YouTube, Wordle, Second Life, Blogger, Wikimedia, Delicious, Flickr, and Classroom 2.0.  There are also technological limitations - computer hardware requirements, computer crashes, sluggish internet, etc. 

One positive I have run across concerning Web 2.0 software is its ease of use.  Many of the websites and tools we have used have been fairly straight forward.  They have all had easy to use tutorials and work with common sense.  Take YouTube for example.  Loading a video is as simple as signing in and clicking 4 buttons.  They also make sharing that video easy.  Flickr was just as easy; I had a dozen pictures uploaded and shared in a matter of minutes.

With that said, there are some annoying aspects of Web 2.0.  The worst part of webpage creation is redoing links when new pages are created.  Linking our Moodle to all of our sites, and then linking them to each other is tedious.  I understand the rationale behind it (all sites are becoming social, even Wikipedia, and should reflect that), but it does not make it fun.

And then there's my previously documented privacy concerns.  How much information am I willing to share?  Is there a difference if I put that information on one site?  On 10?  When does that information become a liability?  In this day and age, when massive companies like Sony and Microsoft are being hacked and having customer data and credit cards stolen, all companies should be working toward new security practices.  I like what Google is doing.  Any user can link their account to their cell phone.  When you log in Google texts you a short number, which you then enter to gain access to your account.  Yes, it slows things down a bit, but I have no concerns that my information is safe - even if my password is taken that person can't get into my account without my cellphone.

Curious

DSC_0014, a photo by nschledorn on Flickr.

Here is a picture of my son from flickr. I don't know how to create a slide show yet. All it seems I can do it add one picture at a time.

Flickr itself is very easy to use.  Since it is owned by Yahoo, where I have an email address, I was able to sign in and post pictures in less than 30 seconds.  Their upload is quick and intuitive.  I like that they have a robust privacy setting, allowing pictures to be public or only shared with a few individuals.  This seems like a quick and easy way to share lots of pictures with family members and find some public domain stuff for other projects.

Wesch on YouTube

This was yet another fascinating video by Michael Wesch on digital ethnography.  I was very surprised that he could discuss YouTube for nearly an hour and always have something new to say.  He also gave a lot of history behind some of the most famous videos, which changed the way I looked at some of them.  I knew about LonelyGirl15, but I didn't know that there was such a push back from the YouTube community when her authenticity was in doubt.

As for what we need to include, and I'm not sure that it should be a requirement, but I plan to make some of my personal videos for this class a reaction to other YouTube videos. 

And here's a video that I kept thinking about during Wesch's talk.  It's by Weezer and it a tribute to the YouTube sensations of the last 10 years.

Wikimedia

The Wikimedia Foundation was officially founded in 2003 by Jimmy Wales.  It consists of many different free educational sites, including reference (Wikipedia, Wikibooks), and social (Wikiveristy, Wiki Incubator).  Wikimedia represents probably the most significant open-source repository of information in the world.  Articles are written in dozens of languages and if free to access anywhere in the world.  It is also perhaps the most democratic repository as well, allowing anyone to create a profile and make improvements to articles.

The first aspect of Wikimedia I chose to focus on was Wikibooks.  Wikibooks is a collection of articles that all relate to a specific topic.  Image that all of the Wikipedia articles on European history were arranged, in chronological order, in one place. 

The article on first aid is a good example.  It opens with a brief overview of the book as well as a table of contents.  The chapters are listed in an organized way that makes it easy to learn.  Clicking on the links in the table of contents brings you to the specific articles.  This is a very nice way to learn specific things as it is more organized that Wikipedia.

The next aspect I looked at was Wikispecies.  Wikispecies is a catalog of all species that is directed at scientists rather than the general pubic.  As a history teacher, I can hardly understand anything in the articles.  Here's an example from Abrothallus halei:

Taxonavigation

Superregnum: Eukaryota
Supergroup: Unikonta
Cladus: Opisthokonta
Regnum: Fungi
Divisio: Ascomycota
Subphylum: Genera incertae sedis
Genus: Abrothallus

One thing that Wikispecies has going for it is the fact that it is geared for a specific audience.  Yes, fewer people will use it than Wikipedia, but it could grow to be an invaluable tool for those that do use it, especially advanced college students.

Overall I am very impressed with Wikimedia.  The foundation seems to be working very hard to be everything to everyone, and is very successful.  The fact that they have remained non-profit is also another selling point; there is no chance for advertiser bias.

Second Life

Last night we had our meeting in Second Life.  I must say I left the experience underwhelmed.

First, Second Life is not every intuitive.  It requires a lot of time to get things set up.  We met on Catamount Island, which included a short tutorial.  After that meeting I explored some other islands, all of which had their own tutorials.  This was after I played through the short tutorial when I signed up (which was not available ever other time I tried to access it). Is the game so difficult that most places assume you could use a tutorial?

There are also many idiosyncrasies that I had trouble with.  Why is hair style considered an article of clothing? In addition, I have a fairly beefy computer and one of the fastest DSL connections available (short of business class), but I had to crank down the view distance and resolution to avoid game-breaking choppiness.  And we were unable to get voice chat to work yesterday so we had to type everything out.  I couldn't imagine that working with 20+ people in a  group.

We explored a lot on  the island.  There was a nice display on the Cherokee that included two of their myths and their alphabet.  It was very interesting to look at.  We stepped into a classroom that auto-played a YouTube video as we entered.  Jason informed us that second life could also play PowerPoint presentations.  My initial reaction was "That's it?"  I was even more dumbfounded when he told us WCU pays about $4k a year to "own" that island.  That doesn't seem to be a great return on investment.

After my 3 hours of playing around with Second Life, I'm not sure how well it would work in educational settings.  Paying $4,000 to play YouTube videos and PowerPoints, which YouTube already does for free, seems counter-intuitive.   We'll see how I feel after attending a SLED event.

Wikiversity

Wikiversity was new to me.  Before this course I had never heard of it.  After exploring the Web 2.0 course for a bit, I see a lot of similarities between that course and ours.  Both seem to require a lot of motivation on the side of the student and require them to be self motivated. 

The Wikiversity course does seem to be more limited in its courses.  There isn't a simple way for students to communicate and I"m not sure where faculty feedback comes in.  Still, it's a nice self-paced way to become familiar with a topic you don't have much experience with.

Delicious

Here's the link to my delicious account.

I'm not sure what to think about delicious and other social bookmark sites.  It seems like these sites provide a good selection of links that are well organized, but they're not something I go to when I need to find something.  I'm not sure what they offer that is better than Google.

With that said, I think they would be a great way to create an annotated bibliography and share that with other people.

On Wikipedia

First, the profile link.

I'm very impressed with the community that Wikipedia seems to be fostering.  I always assumed that people only made changes to articles and then moved on, checking back periodically to see if their changes stuck. 

Seeing that Wikipedia allows users to create profiles, customize them, and then share them with the world.  Even allowing editors to communicate back and forth is a new and welcome change.  It seems that Wikipedia is attempting to create a community among their editors, which in turn will build a sense of community.

Logo

Here's my new logo.  I used logosnap.com to create it.  The site was very simple and it is free, but they do ask for money a lot, not that I can blame them.

Wordle

This is the Wordle from my Moodle introduction.  It's telling that school is so large, seeing as I spend most of my day in one or working for one.

Here is the Wordle from the cover letter of the last job I applied for.  It's for a instructional technologist position at a local college.  I'll find out soon if I got it or not.





Wordle is nice because it's so simple.  It easily shows what words are the most important in your speech/article/etc.  I do one with the text from the State of the Union address with my students.  We look at the largest words and use that to determine their importance.  It leads to a great class discussion.

Video #2

Here's my second video:

I treated this video more like a blog than an introduction.  I waxed philosophical on some privacy concerns I have with sites like Facebook.

Here's the article I referenced.  In the video I said it was one year, but it was actually 3.  Times flies when you're having fun, right?

Dear Grandma

*My Grandmother passed away a few years ago, but while she was alive she worked for NASA and helped design the lunar rover.  That's the basis of this post.*

Remember when you were placed on the team that would help design the lunar rover?  The facility was centered in Long Island, NY, but none of the engineers lived there.  Everyone had to pack up their lives and move, some from as far away as California.

Now imagine no one was able to move.  How would you have communicated with everyone?  You could use the phone, but that would make it impossible to show diagrams.  You could have used the postal service, but then you would have to wait days for your letters to arrive and then even longer to get a response.  And even then you could only communicate with one person at a time, which could easily lead to a breakdown of communication.  What a waste of time and resources.

Now imagine that there was a system that allowed to you share those plans wirelessly with the entire team at the same time.  Imagine that each engineer could make a change, which would be reflected immediately for everyone to see.  Imagine a phone system that allowed you to talk with the entire team while those changes were being made.  You would have the benefit of discussing problems and solving them together, instantly.

That is Web 2.0.  It is a system that allows people from all around the world to share ideas and pictures and conversations with as many people, or as little, as they would like.  It removes the need to relocate dozens of people.  It would allow you to talk with other scientists from around the world  to improve your design.  It would let you stay in your small Pennsylvania town without having to move to NY.

Now think about its other applications.  It would be easier to talk with your grandchildren and see long lost high school friends.  It would let you rediscover those old movies you loved to watch, and it would even provide some background information you may not have known.

improp2.0

Here's my free writing:

"Web 2.0 is a group of technologies that allows for great collaboration and sharing over the internet.  It has social, business, and educational implications and uses."

Like most people, I type much faster than I write.

Crowdsourcing

When I first watched this video I thought of the Hitchhiker's Guide the Galaxy.  In it, there is a race of people that are tying to figure out the answer to "life, the universe, and everything."  The build a massive computer and wait millions of years, only to find the answer is 42.  Distraught, they now have to find the question.  Here's the scene from the movie:

The book continues and the reader is ultimately shown that this ancient race builds a supercomputer to find the question - Earth, and all of the people on it, make up that computer.  Did Douglass Adams foreshadow crowdsourcing in 1978 when he first wrote the Hitchhiker's Guide?

Crowdsourcing is one of the greatest innovations of Web 2.0.  Finally having the technology that allows millions of people to make incremental changes to a product will only make that product better (in the long run).  Wikipedia is a prime example.  Allowing anyone to change an article ensures that it is complete and accurate.  A science textbook can't change with current theories and a history book can't include newly unearthed primary documents - but Wikipedia can.  Of course vandalism is an issue, but negative changes are only there for a few minutes before someone else notices and changes them.  Mistakes in a printed work are there forever.

Then there is the video, which showed how Luis von Ahn saw a problem - specifically the poor image labeling on the web - and devised a way to improve it.  Instead of building a team of people to go through each of the millions of pictures on the web, he built a game that allowed everyone to do it.  He was also clever enough to do it in a way that made people want to play.  He appealed to their competitive nature and completed a task that would have taken a dozen people just as many years to complete.

Crowdsourcing is the wave of the future and I'm excited to see how it can be leveraged to make sweeping changes to the world.

Seasons and Moon Phases

After watching the video showing other students answering the question we were asked to answer I didn't feel so bad.  Seeing a bunch of Harvard grads get the same questions wrong I did showed me that it's hard to get people to give up what they believe to be true their entire life, even if their beliefs are flat out wrong.

I think Web 2.0 can help people retain the correct information by giving them better access to experts and teaching tools.  Looking at the models the teacher was working with and hearing her explanation does not seem to be as effective a teaching tool as a NASA produced video.  If students had questions they could email actual astronomers to have it explained a different way.  Sometimes hearing a different person explain the same thing is all it takes to make it sink in.

However, many people believe the first thing they read on the internet and hold it as gospel, so the teacher would still have to teach students to verify their information.  I was working on a project about ancient India with my students last week and one student said that the Indians were the first to invent flying machines.  After looking at his source, he was reading a blog by a UFO-ologist who was arguing that ancient aliens had visited India and left one of their UFOs behind.

Digital Ethnography

As someone who has been teaching nearly 10 years I've had the opportunity to watch technology take a larger and larger role in the classroom.  When I first started teaching I still had to confiscate hand written notes.  I would deter kids from passing these notes by blacking out all identifying names, grading it for grammar, and then posting it on my wall.  I usually only had 2 or 3 notes to grade before people started wising up.  Today cell phones are so cheap that all of my students have one and use them to pass their notes, and they're so fast I usually can't catch them doing it.  I even have students who can send a text without ever looking at the screen.

I am constantly reminded that I have to teach students to use technology that hasn't been invented yet.   iPads are becoming commonplace in many high schools and universities, yet they didn't exist when I went through college.  What did my teachers teach me that made me able to use one?

Even though they didn't teach me specifically how to uses these devices, they did give me a skill set which will allow me to figure them out and use them effectively.  I learned how to use a mouse to manipulate things on a screen, which then turned into using a stylus, which then became using my finger.  I learned how to type with both hands so typing with just my thumbs was never difficult.  I learned how wired networks worked, so figuring out how wireless ones are set up was not a major obstacle.

What I got from these videos by Dr. Wesch is that schools today need to teach skills as much as they need to teach facts.  Standing up at the chalkboard and writing things down for the students to then write down only teaches facts and does not teach skills.  However, having students research their facts and then post them on a class webpage, as was discussed in the seminar, not only taught those students the facts, but allowed them to learn some skills as well. 

Having those students think about formatting and decoration in addition to the content gives them the skills to produce web content, which may be the primary method of communication in 10 years, especially if the large tech companies have everything moved over to the "cloud" by then.

One blog that I read a lot is the Blue Skunk Blog by Doug Johnson.  He works with librarians through many public schools and helps them introduce technology into the classrooms.  In addition to discussing technology he also waxes philosophical on copyright, school bureaucracy, and teaching in general.  I always make sure to catch on his blog when I have a free moment.

http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/

Help Wanted

Alamance-Burlington School System is looking to hire a Web 2.0 administrator.  Qualified applicants will have experience in interactive technologies including, but not limited to, blogging, Moodle/Gaggle, and social networking.  Understanding how to properly use these technologies in an educational setting is required.  Applicants will understand and adhere to all legal and ethical guidelines to create a safe online environment for our students.  Please email hireme@abss.edu for information and to apply.

YouTube Introduction

Here are my thoughts concerning the YouTube introduction we were asked to do.  First, my drawl gets worse and worse every year.  People used to think I was from the North because I didn't have an accent, but now there's no mistaking that I'm an NC native.

Secondly, uploading to YouTube was simple.  Google has spent the last few weeks streamlining a lot of their services and YouTube is obviously one of them.  After signing in I was just a few click away from an uploaded video.  They also do a good job with their privacy settings.  I don't know that I want my students to see every family movie I may put online.

I used a Aiptek HD Flip cam ripoff because they were so much cheaper a few years ago.  I was happy with both the sound and video quality, especially because the camera was only $50.

Oh, and I also need to shave.

Objectives

I would like to leave this course with the following

• A concise definition of Web 2.0
• Clear understanding of Web 2.0 technologies
• Practical classroom applications of said technologies
• An understanding of social media limitations in public schools (primarily legal concerns)
• The technical know-how to troubleshoot potential problems

Web 2.0 definition

This assignment would have been easier if it was done through Google Docs.  Changes could have occurred in real time and we could have discussed any changes we wanted to make prior to making them.  Twitter may have worked too.  It would have forced us to keep our definitions concise which could have made it easier to understand.

"Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that easily allow the user to share information and collaborate. When I think of Web 2.0, I think of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, but also interactive sites like Moodle, Gaggle and the dreaded Blackboard. Wikipedia, and blogs are also social media sites. But, Web 2.0 goes beyond these. Web 2.0 is any website that is interactive, allowing the site viewer to make an entry to the website, whether that entry is a “like”, “+1”, “friend”, “comment”, “clarification” or question.  Web 2.0 sites should grow and improve with user input and never remain stagnant."

First week reflections

The thing I want my students to leave my class with most - more than even their historical knowledge - is to begin with the end in mind.  Knowing where you are going forces your mind to make a plan, whether you realize it or not.  I start every unit plan by writing my test for the unit so I can make certain that I've taught everything I need and so I appropriately pace my lessons.  Having students look at the final exam, understand it's length, digest the questions, shows they how they need to think through my course.  The first week of my class is all skills based and the rest of the course is spent using those skills to understand history so they're able to master the final.

Because of this character trait, the first week of this class has been difficult.  Like I'm sure many people will say, I didn't know what I was doing at first.  I didn't know who was in the class, who was setting up the Google Groups account (I'm still curious how many of them were set up) or how to use the ASU class website.  I'm still not sure where we're going, but it's nice to be on this ride with some friendly faces, even if I've never met them in person.  I'm just glad our professor has been on this ride a few times and, even if we're not sure where we're going, he is.

Welcome

Welcome to the blog of Neil Schledorn, history teacher in central NC and tech enthusiast.  First, some background:

I've been interested in computers as long as I can remember.  My first PC was an IBM 8086 with dual 5.25" floppy drives.  I used to spend hours tinkering with DOS so I could play such amazing games as Legacy of the Ancients and Dr. Doom's Revenge.  As cliche as it sounds, I learned about computers because I wanted to play video games.  Popping a disk into an XBOX is nothing like allocating memory in DOS just to get a game to play.

On that same computer I learned a bit of BASIC programming and wrote a simple program that would allow me to catalog my comic books. 

Following the 8086 my family moved up to a Pentium 133 and that introduced me to Windows.  A new OS came with new challenges.  Now it was getting my old games to work with the new system.  Thankfully Windows 95 still had native DOS support so there was not too much to figure out.

Fast forwarding a few years saw me in high school.  There I took all of the computer classes I could, basic typing, HTML, C++, hardware, and networking.  While in high school I also found that I had a passion for history.  I was not until college that I really decided to persue that passion.

When I first became an undergrad my plan was to graduate with a degree in computer science and find a job in an office somewhere.  After one year I decided that route wasn't for me and I changed my hobby, history, into my career.  I worked towards a history, secondary education degree which I earned in 2004.  I've been teaching at the same school ever sense and love every minute of it.