My name is Dwayne Schnell. I made this site as a pre-service teacher in training at the University of Lethbridge.
I enjoy hiking or climbing in the mountains, though sometimes I wish we didn't have quite the abundant bear population in the rockies so that my wife could join me. Oh well...
I enjoy playing on the piano from time to time, going for family walks with our dog, and doing home renos, repairs, car mechanics, and related tinkering stuff. I rebuilt my first car as a teenager, which was a 1965 Plymouth Fury III back in 1996 or so. I enjoy some nature photography, some traveling, and would love to visit more ancient archeological sites.
I've worked in the oilfield, as a framing assistant building custom homes, and even in a radiator manufacturing plant (for three weeks). I drafted for an engineering firm, and did 3D modeling and animation for architectural and technical projects.
I have studied and learned a few different philosophies of education in the last couple of years before entering the education faculty at the University of Lethbridge. The B.Ed. will give a much more grand experience and foundation to teach through my years as an instructor. I've taught some basic web design classes for entrepreneurs, as well as Sunday school for children and youth. MY PS I practicum was in a grade 3 class, while PS II was in grade 10 & 11 classes. I look forward to being able to have a degree and and stronger foundation to be a (hopefully) great teacher as the years go on.
I've been around the technology block, as well as the post-secondary education block a few times.
I started my technology 'career' around age 7 with a Commodore 64. I wasn't able to really grasp the simple BASIC programming very well, though I tried to copy a few of the simple programs that were given as examples in a book.
Then I grew into the world of DOS on a 286 16MHz machine. It never ceases to amaze me when I think of the 40MB hard drive, no user adjustable RAM, and simple I/O architecture compared to modern computers. I started (and preferred) DOS 4, then grew into 5, 6, then finally 6.22 before we got a computer from my dad's office which had Windows 3.1 on it. It wasn't as impressive as I hoped, since I didn't have any other programs to run on it, besides the few games that came with it; I found myself in the command prompt more often than not, playing my old DOS games.
The craving to take things apart got the best of me, and I started delving into the guts of the computer a little more. With faster computers, and the awareness of parts and upgrades, I started tinkering a little more. My first computer that I bought with my own money for college (round one) was an AMD K6 based machine running at 200MHz with Windows 98. It just kept going from there, with time spent on Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X, leading into a technician job for a short while. I've built my own custom computers for several years now (except for the Apple ones).
My self-proclaimed geekiness/nerdiness doesn't stop there, however. I also tinkered with home and car stereos, toasters, irons, VCRs, video cameras and amplifiers. I was also a budding photographer and new media person. All of these during my teenage years led me to believe that I should get a degree of some sort, so I studied for a bit at a college in Idaho and received two Associate Degrees - Electronics Engineering Technology and Computer Systems Technology. More studying at DeVry in Calgary led me to think it was no longer for me. So I attempted 1st year engineering. This didn't work out well, either (for personal and pedagogical reasons). Onward to a Mechanical Design Technology diploma from SAIT. This sort of fit me better, but wasn't quite where I needed to be.
Now I can put all of my studies into practice, as I am gearing up to be a high school physics teacher. Hopefully my experiences and journeys through time and technology can help me pass on information and the love of learning adequately and efficiently.