post 8

It seems to me that it hasn't been until the past decade or less that most public schools have truly started integrating computers into their educational programming.  As a young Vinnie, we had a computer in our living room that I wasn't allowed to use but I sometimes watched my mom clack away on, I didn't really care much for computers. When I was in elementary school, education had a more traditional approach.  We never used computers for anything until we reached about 4th grade and still at that point they were used about twice a year just for some sort of computer quizzes and puzzles. It wasn't until 7th grade in middle school that we started taking mandatory typing classes.  We had to learn typing skills, how to surf the internet, how to delete cookies, how to work Microsoft word and other basic computer necessities.  I didn't pay much attention to the teacher in those classes because they were fairly straight forward things to do, mostly I would just look up Garfield comics.  After 8th grade I wasn't required to take anymore computer classes, but I did take two computer classes my junior year which helped me learn a lot about computers and messing up the system at the school.  I learned about photoshop, excell, some sort of newspaper program, how to design a basic website, and other intermediate skills.  The most important skill I learned from that class was not taught by the teacher but by one of my friends who had a game called Unreal Tournament on his flashdrive.  He gave me a copy for my flashdrive and we ended up putting it on every computer in the school, creating LAN games across school networks, and really making the computer technician hate his job.  These skills helped me very little outside of school because it wasn't until the end of my senior year that I even had a computer to use.  In 7th grade my step dad bought a computer and then told everyone that it was only to be used by he and my mom, which was fine with me.  When I got a computer of my own I decided it would have to be great for gaming, so I have a laptop which holds a great capacity for new age games.  Since I rarely use my laptop for schooling assignments besides writing and reading online I would have to say my education with computers and schooling has a good amount of contrast, this could also be due to the fact that I'm an Outdoor Recreation major.