Dreaming Provides Hope

While recently attempting to clean a closet at our house, I came across a hard copy of a digital picture.  This might not sound all that interesting, but the picture was from about 1978!

For anyone who was born after 1990 (or so), cameras and photographs used to be almost luxury items.  Taking a picture meant having a dedicated machine that could only take a picture on something called "film."  You used to have to purchase film, load the film in a camera, and then expose the film to light by "taking" a picture.  Once you used all of the exposures on a roll of film, you would take it to the store to be developed, and then you had a hard copy of a picture!  Of course, you couldn't see your picture before you paid to have it developed.  Also, film and developing film was expensive so you limited the number of pictures you took.  

Now, of course, most of us carry a camera with our phones.  We take unlimited numbers of pictures and can share them with no difficulty at all.  Good or bad, cameras and their users are everywhere now.

In 1978, we couldn't even have imagined having a camera on a mobile phone and being able to take as many pictures as we wanted.  But...some people did.

This picture is of my sister and me.  I vaguely remember sitting for it.  We were at some sort of a fair, and my parents paid to have our picture taken by something called a computer.  The picture was printed as we waited, and were were amazed.  I remember it being more a novelty than anything else, and we never dreamed of this as having any practical applications.

How wrong we were.  As I shared, now cameras are everywhere.  And while it's easy to think about all of the selfies and uses in social media, just think how cameras are used in the medical field and other sciences.  Digital cameras have changed our world.

I wish I had been someone when I was younger to have dreamed of the possibilities of a digital camera.

Today, however, our school is helping kids dream.

This picture (ironically taken on a digital camera using my phone which I carry in my pocket) is of our media specialist, Mrs. Canady, and one of our kindergarten classes.  She is introducing an Ozobot to the class.  You can see the ping-pong ball shaped Ozobot on the paper in the middle of the group.  The bot is programmed to travel on a line that can be drawn with markers.  Using different colors of markers codes the bot to do something unique like turn left, spin in a circle, or turn a light on or off.  In other words, an Ozobot is a mini, autonomous vehicle.

While the students were enamored, it was clear from their responses that they absolutely knew they could do this.  They weren't as amazed that that this was cool as much as they confidently portrayed they could program this bot.  And they did!  For 2-3 weeks all of our students in each grade had the opportunity to learn about and explore how to code the Ozobots.  They were doing more than playing, of course.  Mrs. Canady actively helped our students dream about the possibilities of this type of technology.

As we hear in the news about cars that drive themselves and think to ourselves, "Having a car with no steering wheel is just not possible," I'm grateful we have teachers, supports, and students who do dream about what the future can be.  This dreaming is what provides hope!