Long May You Run

I like to think I'm pretty flexible when I'm teaching: interruptions rarely bother me, and teachers, administrators, counselors, and students are usually welcome to come in and out of my classroom as needed. That's why I didn't miss a beat in the directions when a couple of folks from our technology team slipped in this morning. As they made their way over to my desk, I walked that way, too. "What do you guys need?" I asked.

With big grins, they waved a computer at me. 

I must have looked confused. "It's yours!" one explained.

"It's finally here," agreed his colleague.

I saw then that they had a brand new MacBook Air, and it was true that my school computer was a couple years past its replacement date. But I also looked at the set-up I had put in place connecting the old workhorse to an extra monitor and a really old SMART Board. I knew the new computer would, at the very least, require adjustments. 

"I can't have it right now!" I told them wide-eyed. I still had 2 more classes to teach.

"No worries," they reassured me, just sign in and we can configure it for you." 

Regaining my composure, I sat at my desk and began to navigate the slightly unfamiliar device. Then I looked up, gave the students their next directions in my booming teacher voice, grabbed the mouse for the other computer, and clicked over to the next activity. I scanned the new screen, and entered my user name and password again, ticked the Trust button, handed the new laptop over, thanked the tech team, and stood up to continue the lesson.

As promised? My configured MacBook was delivered to me a little while later. I needed to figure out a few things, but it's a pretty nice machine, and I'm enjoying using it right now. Fingers crossed, the transition to my teaching set-up will be seamless, and I'll hand over my old lap top on Monday. 

Before I do, though, I will thank it for its service; it has seen me through a lot in the last five years and change. I have planned hundreds of lessons and graded countless assignments on it, learned how to use our Learning Management System with it, and took it to Minnesota in 2019 when my mom was sick and used it to send my lesson plans while I was away. I posted asynchronous lessons with it every day when we went out for COVID in 2020, and of course I taught all my classes from it, first remotely, and then hybrid, for the entirety of the 20-21 school year. And in addition to all of that, I have probably written close to 2000 blog posts on that keyboard. 

That's a lot of work! At least one of is retiring.