Snapsots: part I

There are some moments, simple moments, that I look at and smile. The fifth grade, The sixth grade, the tenth grade and so on. Brief photographs that make up the movie of my life. Here are the stories that I think about often, but don't share enough. These are some things that have influenced me.

I remember my first computer class, 6th grade, (apparently that is both more common and more ancient than I thought). I had no idea, when I sat down at my first Mac that computers would weave so thoroughly through my life.

I enjoyed the class, but, I'm not sure it really changed my life.

When I was in ninth grade you could have asked me "Are you Mac or PC?" and I probably would have said PC. After all it looked like the way things were going (and they did). I was even a little surprised when I decided to take the 'intro to Mac class' (instead of the 'intro to PCs' one), but somebody taught me a great secret; sometimes it's the teacher.

This time it was the teacher.

Mrs. Webb was amazing. She had a gift, she had a few of them. She loved computers, she wanted us to love them too. She could start at the very beginning, but she could take a person about as far as they wanted to go. She didn't teach the same things that others were teaching. In fact she did even always teach the same things herself. Her goal was to teach (and learn) one new program every semester, at a minimum. Consequently we learned a lot of cool stuff.

I heard that the 'PC' people were learning stuff too, but it wasn't quite the same.
We were frontiersmen, on the very edge of unexplored world of computers, and we were exploring it. We started with the some of the basics, but soon we had moved on.
We made movies, and websites, and in my year, 3D animations. We talked with people all over the world, face to face. It used to be a serious novelty. We learned FTP, and layout programs, and the one of a kind Hypercard. Hypercard was like the forerunner to flash. It was programming, and and animation all in one. And yes we did a little programming, and HTML.

It was downright remarkable. I was learning the things that got me to where I am today. Mrs. Webb was indeed an architect and artist: creating futures for hundreds of students, and I was one of them.

When the foundation was set. I decided to take some classes from Mr. Andersen. He too helped me to see the power of these little beige boxes. Here too, I learned so much, partly because he had us help each other. Usually I would learn one way, and he would find a different way to do it, whatever it was. Then when people needed help, he let us share whatever knowledge we could muster. I was glad he did it. It reinforced the things we learned. And I learned a lot.

It's amazing the difference one person or class can make. I've forgotten most of the thing we learned back then, and I've had to learn many more things. But the foundation
was laid and the foundation was solid. I learned how computer programs work. I learned the frameworks, so I could learn all the programs that we didn't learn. Even the programs that were yet to be conceived. And it has served me ever since.
Thanks to those that taught me so much, so long ago.