Originally published in TEACH Magazine, September/October 2014 Issue
By Allison Mollica
When I reflect on my years working in classrooms with students, I think about how much time it took to access and use essential technology B.G. (before Google). I compare it with what it must have been like for people before electricity and after electricity. B.G., we had limitations, we couldn’t do things as quickly, and we did a lot of manual labor. A.G. (after Google), it was as if someone had flipped a switch and automated our educational world.
Using technology was traditionally a BIG DEAL, and honestly painful much of the time. It was difficult. It was time consuming. It was challenging. I love to problem-solve and overcome hurdles, so this was not a problem for me, but it was a problem for others. Schools became heavily dependant on technology integrators to build the bridge between technology and the curriculum.
Allison Mollica is an instructor at the Virtual Learning Academy Charter School, New Hampshire’s only completely online public school. Prior to that, she spent many years as a classroom teacher. She was recently selected among thousands of applicants in the United States to become a Google-certified teacher.
