A New Year - A New Semester

It is a new semester and I've started with my first class. It seems interesting and I hope to learn more than I did in the last class. The first assignment is a "getting to know you" essay, so I thought I'd share it here:

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EST 571 January 8, 2008

Written Perspective 1 Kim Bunchuck

Understanding and Use of Educational Technology

The IBM Personal Computers and I started in technology the same year, 1981. I was in college trying to decide what I wanted to do when I grew up when I stumbled into a BASIC programming class. I was hooked! I took as many computer electives as an English Literature major could and graduated college in 1982 with a minor in computer programming. While in college, I was employed to write programs in FORTRAN to collect and report surveys results.

I’ve worked in IT ever since. In 1985, I started teaching evening classes at Strayer College (now University) in Washington DC. My students learned Harvard Total Project Manager, WordPerfect, and Lotus 1-2-3. By day I was Assistant Director of the technology department for the Wilderness Society. We used an IBM System 38 to perform all the fundraising for the large organization.

A move to Long Island in 1989 brought me to Suffolk Community College to teach Adult Education classes, something I have done now for 17 years. Currently I serve as the Technology Director of Greenport School District, a position that I’ve held since 1997. It is a small district, so I get to do it all, from printer jams to network implementation. I am not classroom faculty, so my teaching is limited to staff development. I do teach one night a week at Suffolk Community College.

My hobby through all this time has been quilting. In a mid-life crisis decision, I started a quilt related business in 1999. I registered SunbonnetSue.com and started an e-commerce web business that sells fabric and patterns. I have changed the website over the years, first programming it with CGI scripts, but now managing my inventory and customer databases with SQL and PHP pages.

Even though I have been involved in education for most of my career, I never went back to college to get a Master’s Degree. I’m doing that now. I hope to complete my Degree at the end of 2008 with a thesis focusing on incorporating e-commerce into a college curriculum. I’d like to leave the K-12 environment and work at the college level for the last 20 years of my career.

In the 27 years that I’ve worked in IT, I think I’ve forgotten more information than I currently use. I remember teaching “Introduction to Personal Computers” classes where we worked from a DOS prompt. My favorite application has always been spreadsheets. I current work in EXCEL, but I’ve worked in Symphony, VisiCalc, Lotus (1-2-3 & Symphony). I also have done quite a bit a Database Administration. I used to teach dBASE II, III and IV. Currently I work in Access and SQL using mySQL and phpMyAdmin. I am a big supporter of open source software. I’ve downloaded and implemented all open source programs to run my website. Currently I’m using Gallery and OSCommerce. I have been searching for open source software to put on the Greenport Web Server that I manage. I have a copy of XOOPS downloaded (website management), but I haven’t implemented it yet. I would also like to deploy Moodle on the Greenport Server.

As for my online life, I have training videos posted on Teachertube and Youtube. I have two blogs, one for my quilting life and this one.

The joy of working in IT is that there is always more to learn. I look forward to doing that in this class.