Random …. and Not So Random Musings
Welcome to my Bog Blog!
Saturday morning Computer Help Desk workshops are fast becoming THE TRAINING EVENT OF THE YEAR! Come for the technology upgrade, stay for the food!
Over the past few years I have created the perfect blend of technology, training and a hungry, captive (yet paid!) audience, to place them all in …. JEOPARDY!
Below are 5 PowerPoint modules to bring a wee bit of humour to our CHD Saturday morning workshops!
Just click on any of them and the .pdf will download for you! Why a .pdf? OAC does not like PowerPoint files! LOL!
CHD Workshop is actually the first one, and has a brief history of CALL, including vintage photos of CALL, The Great Flood of 2015 and a history of WICKET, the custom written database program used to track student attendance in The CALL Facility!
The others are updated versions of an original PowerPoint Jeopardy presentation created by Sherri Puentes Graveran (CHD) for a Winter Fest a few years ago!
CALL Workshop – What is CALL?
Jeopardy: CALL
Jeopardy V: Pop Culture
Where were you in …. 1989? What job were YOU working at! In October 1989, I had just been hired as a “Microcomputer Laboratory Assistant” to work at a newly built “Microcomputer Laboratory” – The CALL Facility at The University of Victoria! CALL had a groovy colour scheme of PINK that was part of the design to have a nice …. calming effect on students ….. and staff!! LOL!
I had never heard of this place, and they even misnamed it in the ad, below, that I responded to, as “The Language Centre Computing Facility” What the heck was that? And where was it? That was sort of accurate, but also sort of … not! I had no idea there was even a basement in Clearihue either!
My first shift, ever, was from 4pm until MIDNIGHT! I think the main reason I was hired was that I was the only applicant who actually OWNED a Macintosh computer – a Mac SE! And since there was a single, lone Macintosh, mostly for show … I got the job! LOL! And guess what! I still have that same Mac SE and … IT STILL WORKS!
If you want to see what else happened in October of 1989, just click here!
My personal fave is October 15 when Gretzky overtook Gordie Howe to become the All-Time scorer in the NHL! I once had seasons tickets to the Oilers in their first year of the NHL in 1979! But that is another story!
The CALL Facility was ….. UNLEASHED ….. upon an unsuspecting University of Victoria audience in September of 1989!
And the rest ….. is history! Having survived multiple renovations, multiple floods (The Great Flood of 2015 was the worst!) and multiple MEGA-technological advances ….. The CALL Facility is still here!
Throughout 2019 I will have ‘Retro‘ posts, showing how much has changed in The CALL Facility! And starting with the original ‘newspaper’ announcement of the opening of ‘The Language Centre’ complete with memorable quotes such as:
” ….. one is reminded of a scene from Star Trek.”
“….. a screen is lowered from the ceiling.”
“….. combination of networked audio, video and computer equipment.”
“….. and eventually CD-ROM, an emerging technology which allows huge quantities of computer information to be stored on a single compact disc,”
and my favourite …..
“….. there may be a temptation to use a starship transporter system to get there …..”
Enjoy reading the first ever article about The CALL Facility, and more classic ‘technology’ quotes below, as we were just a part of, at the time, “The Language Centre“!
