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History of Personal Communication Technology Interaction
A breif history of my personal interactions with communication technologies throughout my life time. -
My first video game (+)
At Christmas dinner at my Uncle Butch's house, I played my first video game - Atari Bowling. My obsession with video games began. -
Super Mario Bros. (+)
My cousin got a Nintendo for Christmas. A lot of time was spent with my cousin, Milt, tying to save the princess. -
Bought my first Nintendo (+)
I took a paper route to buy a Nintendo Entertainment System. It was the first time I could play video games at my house instead of friends' homes. Because it was still the age of 1 television per household, my gaming time was extremely limited. -
My first use of a "car phone" (+)
The father of my high school friend, who was the first legal driver in my circle, bought a car phone. It was the type that looked like a hand-set tethered into a shaving kit bag. It was the first time I had ever seen or used a cellular device. At the time, phone call tracing technology did not exist and a lot of crank phone calls were made from that car. -
Built a computer game (+)
During my junior year of high school, a friend and I created a text- based, choose your own adventure game in a programming class using Fortran. Our school still only had monochromatic screens on their computers. Basically, it was a goofy adventure story that would present the player with different choices, and based on the choices made, different parts of the story would be revealed. -
Goodbye, cassettes! (+)
I got my first CD player in 1993. My first album was The Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream. -
Baby Monitor Surveillance (-)
Some friends and I discovered that my sister’s baby monitor receiver picked up cordless phone conversations with an unbelievably long range. Being teens in a small town with not a lot to do, we would take the receiver and drive around listening to phone calls all over the town. -
Electronic mail? (+)
During Freshmen orientation at Pitt, I discovered email. The dotcom boom is beginning in the US. -
World Wide What? (+)
During my Freshmen Studies Class, we we're introduced to the World Wide Web. One of the browsers we were shown was called Gopher, and it was text only. -
Bought my first cell phone (+)
I finally bought my first cell phone afterobstinately refusing to get one. To me, cell phones were deceives obnoxious rich people had. It was a Nokia phone that must have weighed 4 pounds. Calls were expensive and texts were even more. I really did not use this phone too often. -
University Employment (+)
I began working at the University of Pittsburgh in the School of Education. My job was managing databases and training staff and faculty on the use of these databases. I worked this job for four years and then entered the school as a student to become a teacher. -
Bought my first home computer (+)
I was going back to school to start working towards my teacher certification and I bought my first home computer so I would not have to spend time in computer labs on campus. -
Ciocia Jenny passed away (-)
Ciocia Jenny was my great Aunt ("ciocia" means aunt in Polish). She was 88 when she died. She was the last person who consistanly sent me postal letters. I think here is something much better about receiving a personally written letter in the mail than an email. Now when I see mail, I know it is usually either bills or junk. -
Bought a Nintendo DS (+)
I have always been a big video game fan. I got a fulltime teaching job and decided to get myself a DS. The two games I played the most were Mario Kart DS and Animal Crossing Wild World. Both games allowed the player to go online and play with others. Animal Crossing, a quirky sim game that was very big in Japan, also allowed for chatting with other players through texting. I soon had a global network of firends to play with online. -
Bought a Nintendo Wii (+)
I bought a Nintendo Wii. The first game was Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo clearly knows how to milk a franchise). This was Nintendo's first home consol that allowed for WiFi play. -
Animal Crossing for the Wii (+)
The game that I played on the DS was now bought to the Nintendo Wii. One addition to the new version was the Wii Speak which allows players to communicate with each other through voice chat. I know was able to speak with people I had only been chatting with for the last two years. -
Wiki Space Fail (-)
During the second trimester of freshmen year, I created a wiki space for my students. At the time however, I was sort of on board with the panacea approach. “If you build it, they will come.” However, I had not given enough consideration to process and assessment as I should have. Thinking back, maybe 40 percent of my students got something valuable out of the experience, but on the whole it wasn’t very successful. Although, the failure made me reflect on what went wrong and what would need -
New phone - Rumor 2 (+)
Since i had become more accused to texting, I decided to get a phone with a slide out keyboard. Ever since this phone, I primarily text since I am not a big phone talker. -
ZSpace - SNS in the classroom (+)
At the beginning of my class’s sophomore year, I began integrating social networking into my classroom. I originally used ning.com to create my site, and later switched to a service by wall.fm. I began experimenting with ways to use a familiar medium to engage students in a 21st century context and improve students achievement, both in reading and writing. -
Purchased a Smart Phone (+)
I was never one for fancy cell phones, but once I bought the EVO, I was unsure of how I lived without one. I love being able to carry one small device that gives me access to multiple ways to communicate with others. Aside from school work, I generally don't use my laptop anymore.
