If it can Fail, It Will

Thinking about various technology disasters in the classroom brought me to a memory that I have tried rid myself of - JAVA Programming. I was teaching JAVA for the first time, in a classroom that had 20 PCs, overhead projector connected to teacher's PC, printer, and Windows 2000 with the latest software. Or so I was told. I prepared for class, reading the teacher's notes and text, reviewing the PowerPoint, and checked out the sample programs on my own computer. Remember, I was assured that the PCs in the classroom had the latest software on them. And then, the first night of class.

Now, before I finish the story, I have to make a couple of points. While this was the first time I had taught JAVA, it was NOT my first programming class to teach. For example, I have taken and taught FORTRAN, COBOL, PASCAL, BASIC, C, C+ and various pseudo-code languages (Anyone remember LOGO on the TI99-4a with the turtle?). I had years of experience with web pages, starting with Windows 3.1 and Mozilla, through all iterations of Internet Explorer and Netscape. I even created my first web site in Unix with a shell account, when you could only "surf" with text. So, JAVA was not my first rodeo and this was not a new experience. I was a seasoned professional, and should have been prepared. But Murphy's Law prevailed.

Teaching Tip in Technology #3: Practice makes perfect. In this case, practice on the same equipment the students will be practicing on. To make my point, let's go back to the first night of class, with 20 students with (as I found out later) had a wide range of experience with PCs and JAVA (from "I could have written this Book" to "Now, What's a Mouse again"). The lecture and PowerPoint went fine, but then it came time for the students to write and compile their first program ("Hello World"). The instructor's PC demonstrated the procedures fine, but when the students tried to copy this simple program, things fell apart. The correct software and compiler were not loaded on the student's PCs. No one was available at the Help Desk. You see, I had tested on my PC and on the Instructor's PC, but failed to check the software on the student's PCs. Lesson learned the hard way, but you better believe the software was on those PCs the next week. Again, SEMPER GUMBY.