News : Two lessons on technology for Jr. Journalists

Gross Anatomy: The girls saw a brain, and videos of surgery at the Open Minds, Open Doors event.

Brea Uthoff with her left hand wrapped at the event.

Brea Uthoff practices a medical exam during the Open Minds, Open Doors event Tuesday.

The girls in the Vinton-Shellsburg Junior Journalism class were excited about getting to the Tueday afternoon JJ session, so they could share the photos and the stories about the things they had seen and the lessons they had learned.

Several VSMS girls spent the day at the “Open Minds, Open Doors” conference at Coe College. The event is designed to give girls in grades 6-8 more information about careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math.

The girls heard a presentation on the weather by KWWL-TV meteorologist Eileen Loane. They saw a human brain and a presentation on “gross anatomy,” which included some videos of surgery. They also experimented with first aid; many of them returned to their schools with their hands wrapped in a splint.

But the second lesson on technology came as two of the girls in the Jr. Journalism class were trying to type their stories. The girls had logged into the Vinton Today JJ page, and were typing their stories about “Open Minds, Open Doors,” while other students were working on other stories.

Then all of the computers simultaneously shut down.

One of my first lessons in journalism was how technology issues – either computer problems or human errors – can really get in the way. My first keyboard had my fingers so confused that I often pushed some bizarre combination of keys that would cause me to erase my entire story. I did this once while trying to save the story; I succeeded in saving it – after I erased all of my paragraphs.

On another occasion, I hooked up two computers, a small one and a large Mac G3, to the same scanner. The large computer – I swear I am not making this up – literally ate the small computer. The little computer gave me the dreaded (and for Mac users, the familiar) “?” when I tried to start it, signaling that there was no computer to start. After spending several minutes trying to figure out what had happened, I looked at the monitor of the big computer. There it was: The icon of the small computer. I spent a Sunday afternoon doing the electronic equivalent of the Heimlich maneuver, prying the small computer out of the big one. It worked, but I never tried to hook up two computers to the same scanner – EVER AGAIN.

Our efforts to tell the stories of “Open Minds, Open Doors” effectively ended our work for Tuesday; you will have to wait until next week to see what the students had to say about what they learned.

At least you can see our Brea’s photos from the event – if technology is more kind to me than it was during our class.