#52 Ancestors 2021 Week 36 Working: How I became a computer goddess

OK.  Not me, but you get the idea.

When I retired in 2013, I was the Chief Information Officer at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. 

 Anyone who knew me as a girl and young woman might have been surprised that I ended up there.  

From childhood, I always wanted to be a teacher.  I spent many happy mornings teaching a classroom full of dolls and stuffed animals and occasionally even some of my playmates.  I grew up, got advanced degrees in literature and rhetoric, and in 1971, I was hired at Anne Arundel Community College (where I had once been a student myself) and started my dream job as a college professor of English, teaching composition and literature.  For the next 15 years or so, I happily enjoyed my teaching.  I even published a couple of textbooks about teaching writing. 

And then computers entered my life. 

In the early 80's, IBM had introduced the personal computer with MS DOS operating system, and Apple had put out its rival version.  I had actually acquired a PC so that I could work on my doctoral dissertation, using floppy discs and MS Word. 

Sometime in the late 1980's, the county, in its infinite wisdom, decided to renovate the Humanities Building where I worked.  Further, it was decided that the renovation would include a new-fangled computer classroom, not just a walk-in lab, but an actual instructional space.  Never let it be said that AACC wasn't keeping up with the times. 

The Humanities faculty, were, by and large, not enthused about this idea.  Indeed, some of them regarded computers as the death knell of the Humanities. 

I, however, was intrigued with the idea and volunteered to work on the computer classroom project. Since I had never seen a computer classroom, I visited all the other schools in the area that had such a space (only about five at the time) to learn what one did in a computer classroom where each student had a computer. That experience changed my whole way of thinking about teaching and eventually led to a major career change. 

What I saw was that this kind of learning put much more focus on the students themselves and made them more active in their own learning.  The teacher was no longer "the sage on the stage," but more of a "guide on the side." The personal computers opened up a lot of possibilities that weren't available in a regular classroom. 

I managed to recruit a few of my colleagues who agreed to teach their classes in the computer classroom, and we got together to plan out classroom activities and lesson plans. Our classroom focused more on what students could do and less on what teachers could tell them. We could focus on seeing writing as a process with multiple stages and learning as something that was quite collaborative.  Word processors and presentation software gave students the chance to revise and work together on the spot creating joint presentations, sharing text, and providing feedback.  We could use the word processing tools like colored text to visualize poetic rhythm and rhyme or make key words stand out in a text.  

 At the time, the college had a computer department and a few technicians, but they dealt mainly with the large IBM mainframe that the college used and were not so concerned with personal computers. (I can remember using punch cards and standing in line to get my cards run.) 

Windows 3.1 (1990)

I went to them with the radical idea that we needed to have computers with the new Windows operating system and was told in no uncertain terms that they did not support Windows.  Since I knew Humanities faculty would never teach using the clunky DOS, I agreed to support the slightly less-clunky Windows computers myself.  The techs did set up a networked classroom for me, but I was pretty much on my own to keep the computers running. Thanks to a kind-hearted tech, I learned to install software and manage a network.  

At the time, the computers were not connected to the Internet, so we had to depend on software that could be installed on a server for a local network.  We had things like an encyclopedia program and dictionary for reference tools plus a word processor and PowerPoint presentation software.  Pretty primitive by today's standards, but we were having a ball finding creative ways to use our new tools. 

When we offered the first classes in the computer classroom, we charged an extra lab fee to help pay for the cost of the computers and software.  Nevertheless, the computer classes were filled to capacity.  Students loved the experience and more faculty wanted to dip a toe in that water.

Eventually, the college created a requirement for all students to demonstrate competency with computers and other departments demanded their own computer classrooms and a large computer lab for student use outside the classroom. And yes, we got connected to the Internet and even had primitive email (which I was convinced would never catch on because it was so hard to use). I got a new title--Coordinator of Instructional Technology, and I spent a lot of time teaching the college faculty how to use computers in their teaching. 

During Winter Break and in the summers, I would set up Computer camps (Camp Wysiwyg--Do you remember Wysiwyg?) for faculty.  We later expanded to include teachers in the county public schools. The Camp won a national award for faculty development, offering dozens of classes ranging from Introduction to Computers to Multi-Media Authoring, spreadsheets, and database software.  

After a decade of this work, I was ready to move on and I started applying for new jobs.  At one point, I actually had a life-changing choice to make.  I was offered two jobs at roughly the same time--Dean of Liberal Arts at another community college or Head of Client Services at St. Mary's College of Maryland.  I took the technology path and, as Frost said, "That has made all the difference."

I went on to George Mason University in Fairfax VA, where I was the head of the Department of Instructional Technology and Deputy CIO. I later moved to Connecticut and Boston where I had CIO positions.   I learned to be conversant with esoteric technology topics and did my best to keep up with a field that never stood still, especially as my area of responsibility expanded to include not just instructional technology, but telecommunications, media services, help desk support, project management, mainframe management systems, information security, email (yes, it did catch on, after all), remote servers, and research computing.  

Really, though, I never stopped being a teacher.  My secret was my communication skills and that background in teaching.  I discovered that a lot of the highly skilled technology folks were almost completely unable to communicate with the people who relied on their technology, or in some cases didn't even think it was necessary to communicate with the rest of the university.  So, my role was often to translate the needs of the community to the technology staff and explain the technology to the user community, lots and lots of change management. 

I have to say, I really enjoyed my career as a computer goddess.