This is the story all about how my life got flip turned upside-down. --opening song of "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air"

Before completing this project, I was Internet competent: I had used the net for research, amusement, communication, and had even created my own web site. More important than this, though, is the fact that I am not afraid of computers. In my experience, most things on the computer can be fixed with just a little patience. Swearing and pressing the button multiple times hardly ever make your situation better. I have never taken a formal computer class; instead, I have picked up information through experimentation and helpful lab assistants.

The first day that Dr. Bonadonna was showing our class how to upload our files to our Webfolio using Web Course in a Box, I was frustrated and annoyed. I asked if I could make my Webfolio on Geocities or a similar site that gives free web sites. Dr. Bonadonna surprised me by offering to give me a page on the English directory. The next morning I received an e-mail with a username and password and directions that I would be able to start once I had learned to FTP. "FTP?" I wondered. I had no idea what those letters stood for or what learning how to FTP entailed. Undaunted by these initials (which should have been my first warning), I stopped by Dr. Bonadonna's office later that day to learn how to FTP. FTP stands for file transfer protocol: it is the process by which say, this document that I am writing in my basement on my computer in Microsoft Word gets on to my site, on the internet, where you are reading it. First, I had to download a free trial of the Cute FTP program off the Internet. This took me, I kid you not, about an hour and a half. Actually, finding and learning how to download was the challenge, the actual program downloaded in about ninety seconds. Wow! I was proud of myself. I could download! Now to transfer some files.

Now that I had an FTP program, I could transfer files all night long! Unfortunately, I my brain had chosen this particular week to forget all of the information I had learned while making my previous webpage. I began transferring random files and pictures to the site; I was quite disappointed when I realized that they were not showing up as I had intended. Click here to see the five e-mails I exchanged with Dr. Bonadonna trying to straighten out this problem.

My final e-mail to him says that I have decided to give up this web site project and to post my webfolio using Web Course in a Box. But I was hooked. This site had become a Mount Everest in my life: to be conquered because it existed.

Over the next few weeks I conquered, kicked, avoided, and cursed many technology roadblocks. The most notable, in my opinion, was learning and beginning my page in HTML. HTML is hypertext markup language. Right now hit the right button on your mouse and go to "view source" on the menu. See that code? That is what HTML looks like. I learned HTML off of a website (the URL is on my annotated links page).

Each time I learned the code for a new skill, like a picture or a table, I would call my mom down to the basement to look at what I had done. I felt like I was in elementary school again and I was shouting for my parents and neighbors to watch me ride my two-wheeler for the first time.

I really enjoyed learning and employing new skills to make this site, but I am still not certain about technology's role in my classroom. Teaching Web Course in a Box at McAuley, I noticed that many of the students saw the technology as peripheral. And, to be truthful, in a way it was. Many students did not have internet access in their homes, so having papers online did not help them. In this situation, many times a large portion of the work would fall on a student who was familiar with the technology and had a computer in their home. Also, technology seems to be of lesser importance within the schools. McAuley has two computer labs, with a total of about seventy-five computers. That means twenty-six students per one computer (there are about two thousand students). Taking this class, though, has made me a believer in project based learning and technology, and because I believe that this success is possible I will keep trying. Look at this webpage and know that I wrote everything on here with only loose guidelines and rubrics and that I went beyond Web Course in a Box because I really enjoyed this learning. I found technology rewarding and useful, and I think I owe my students the opportunity to work to their full capacity-to go beyond even their own highest expectations.

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