I was somewhat reticent about entering the digital world. Several years ago, when a computer suddenly appeared on my office desk, I asked our departmental assistant what I should do with this piece of equipment. She replied that the only way I could damage it was to pour coffee into it or drop it on the floor and recommended that I just start pushing buttons. I ended up buying an instruction book and taught myself Word. Then I started to learn other programs. Little by little I have been converted to thinking positively, even enthusiastically, about the computer’s potential for use as a teaching tool.

In the classroom, I used to rely entirely on slide transparencies and conventional slide projectors. The unfortunate fact is that the best of slides fade, change color, and deteriorate in other physical ways. In addition, it is not feasible to use slides as study materials for groups. Now I use a flatbed scanner to produce digitized images which I can project in the classroom.

I have digitized some of my own personal slides and used Photoshop in performing basic editing to produce website image galleries that students can review at their leisure and use in studying for exams. In addition, I have just begun to experiment with Blackboard as a teaching tool and hope, with my students’ input, to explore its potential.

I have been using the ELMO system to project images and short pieces of Word-format information in the classroom for several years now and my students have come to rely on this mode of delivery. In fact, it was a student who suggested it as an improvement on the handwritten format I had previously been using. In addition students have been asking for some time where and/or how they could view images that had been shown in class but that were not in their textbook. The scanning of slides makes it possible for me to make additional visual materials available to, them on the course website.