To be a college student

I’ve had the chance to be part of different university systems. This journey started at the University of Puerto Rico where I earned a Bachelor in Secondary Math Education (1977) and a Master in Educational Research and Evaluation (1987). My first period at UPR (1973-1977) was crucial. This was the time when I was able to look at life in different ways, to meet very different people for the first time, and to find myself as an individual. It is not that I was that lost, but the years before this time were very difficult – adolescence was not an easy time for me. Finding myself meant moving away from things I was taught. It also meant learning that there are always possibilities of new beginnings. I had very good professors, professors that gave me the space to grow academically, psychologically, and personally. After this period I became a math teacher.

My second period at UPR (1982-1986) was enlightening. I not only gain another degree, I was also part of a feminist group that organized a women’s conference and wrote some historical papers. As a student I encountered academia and perceived it from a very different standpoint. My professors were very much involved in research and had very high expectations from us. Being older and with kids I wanted to do as much as I could, but having family made it harder. Still having a good companion with whom to share responsibilities made possible for both of us to complete our degrees and move on to another place, another university to continue our studies.

This time it was the University of Iowa (1986-1990), a mid-western university, home of the Hawkeye’s. Affirmative Action helped us economically at the beginning, until we were able to get our own assistantships. For the kids Iowa City was a very different experience far from what they would have had in Puerto Rico. So different my daughter has described it in the following way:

"Taken to Iowa City at age 5, where my parents went to pursue a doctorate degree at the University of Iowa, my brother and I experienced a childhood that most likely very few Puerto Ricans ever have. When I went back home, to the sixth grade, I new I was different for I had enjoyed a childhood in a culture that was not my own" (Nianti Bird-Ortiz, Italy Statement, 2005).

Sometimes I think I should have done much more at UI, but besides family, I think I did not had the maturity to deal with what I found there. At Iowa I finished a second master’s degree in secondary math education, one of my professional passions. I also was introduced to the world of computers in education. The end of the eighties was the time when hypermedia developed into what we know as the World Wide Web. I remembered taking BASIC programming for teachers, Pascal programming, and Plato programming.

Those were the years when Authorware, a programming system, came out. Programming educational lessons meant developing flowcharts that were later populated with content. Integrating sound to a presentation was a difficulty task. SCORM was not heard of at the time, but developing sections that dealt with specific purposes, really seems a predecessor of this technique. For example, developing a section were different types of feedback could be selected randomly, a source code that could be used later for other lessons, was one of the tasks we accomplished. Today a source code with a single purpose, used with different applications, or in different settings will pretty much mean using the SCORM technique.

After UI I had the opportunity to work at Kirkwood Community College (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) for a year, as an Adjunct Faculty member. This experience opened the door to a full time job in Puerto Rico, at the Inter American University, were I have worked ever since.