Living in Limbo: A Paper and Pencil Person in a Digital World

Personal Introduction

I am Dan Conlin, a biology and chemistry teacher at a private Chicago suburban high school. I am also the theatrical technical director which keeps me rather bust after school. As part of this role I co-moderate the student stage crew that does the construction and set finishings for our theatrical productions. I also help supervise and train students that work with props, sound, lighting, and projection. While the work may keep me at school for long hours I love getting to see the students learn through all the hands-on experiences and the natural trial and error and problem solving that accompanies this process.

Set: Into the Woods - 3/2024
Photo belongs to the author

Set: Rock of Ages: High School Edition - 4/2022
Photo belongs to the author

My Wife and Me
Photo Credit: Amanda Conlin

To add to the scheduling chaos, I am also a current graduate student. While I am not in school as the teacher, technician, or student I am spending time with my wife and two young sons. My kids love to spend time outside and we can frequently be found at the park or Brookfield Zoo.

Credit: GIPHY

I am excited to be starting my current grad class looking at technology in education, but I am a bit nervous as this is the first class I am taking since we became a family of four.

My Changing Relationship with Technology

My first memory of real interactions with technology come from computer class in the basement of my grade school. This class included the infamous Oregon Trail. My family did have one shared desktop computer which I remember rarely using for anything more than playing Pinball or Spelling Jungle until middle school when I start typing papers. Accessing the internet only occasionally as dial up was all we had.

Then came high school where typed papers were more common, doing computer research was necessary (we convinced my parents we needed something faster than dial up with 3 people needing the computer some afternoons), and we could even check our grades online. Still technology was not a major part of my life. Notes during school were all taken in notebook, no one had devices during class, and I did not even have a cell phone. If I needed a device at home it was the family computer or walking down to the library right down the street.

College began very similar to high school with my hand-me-over flip phone and new to me, but old enough to have a floppy disk slot in 2009, laptop. The laptop mostly stayed in the dorm room for research and paper writing. But as college progressed so too did the addition of technology deeper into various aspects of my life. I started using computers for entertainment: YouTube, Facebook, and streaming services to name a few. I was also introduced to the backbone and launching point for most the theatrical technology I use today.

Entering the teaching career, technology was a must from the gradebook to resource videos and slideshow visuals. A few years into teaching my first school was going 1:1 with student owned iPads and I was excited for the new possibilities and was one of the teachers to help launch the program. Now almost ten years later I find I am less excited by technology but still hopeful for its usefulness and inclusion both in the classroom and my personal life.

Credit: GIPHY

I find myself echoing a more modern and less dramatic Shakespearean Hamlet, “To tech, or not to tech, that is the question.” This mantra keeps popping up far too often over the past three years. I love what technology can do for both classrooms and personally, but I feel more and more like technology is using me, and not me using it. In my personal life I seem to use pencil and paper with about equal success to using technology. I feel like I am living in limbo. I default to what is familiar, what I grew up with and did for most of my life, which is use pencil and paper; physical lists to keep track of items, a spiral notebook for grad school classes, a notebook for teacher meetings. But other times I want the ease of access and transportability of a technology/cloud based solution. Honestly sometimes I have both a pencil and paper and technology trying to do the same thing and then I struggle even more to keep things in order. I am really working this year on getting my toolbox in order and trying to stick with a solution be it digital or not.

Professionally, I am working in a different school than I launched the 1:1 program at, but we still use 1:1 student owned iPads. These can be amazing tools and when structured into the classes properly I still like them. However, as more and more students have cell phones I see a continued trend towards the iPad being an extension of the phone, a device used for leisure, not for education. The amount of ways students try and get around various programs and protocols to help keep them focused while using their iPads during class continues to grow. I no longer allow digital notes, even though I know some students would benefit, because the last year I allowed it I was constantly needing to redirect students back on task and taking away from the lessons. I am not giving up on technology, I know it is here to stay. I am however, trying to find better balance personally and professionally, in this continual game of technology limbo.

"We need technology in every classroom and in every student and teacher’s hand, because it is the pen and paper of our time, and it is the lens through which we experience much of our world." – David Warlick

GIF Credits:

https://giphy.com/gifs/abcnetwork-celebrity-family-feud-abc-celebrityfamilyfeudabc-feudabc-KF2gExasQbk9u1YLRy 

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David Warlick Quote 

https://onlinedegrees.sandiego.edu/what-is-educational-technology-definition-examples-impact/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CWe%20need%20technology%20in%20every,experience%20much%20of%20our%20world.%E2%80%9D