Okay, so I feel like I have actually begun my journey into Web 2.0 now. I feel a little like an explorer in a new land; there is very little that is familiar (the focus of my first post). It has been great to read blogs from my classmates, echoing the same sentiments. I know I am not alone. I am definitely feeling a bit overwhelmed, but excited about the new opportunities to expand my digital sphere.
Before starting my PhD, my digital sphere included email, Facebook, and online media (Netflix, PBS kids, Pandora, Amazon). When I started my PhD, I added a few new tools to my toolbox for document sharing (onedrive, googledocs). Everything else is basically new to me. This has been my first real "Aha" moment of the course. The truth of how little I know is causing me to reevaluate some of my personal beliefs, specifically my belief that I am tech savvy. It is a label I have worn for many years, but now I am not so sure that it fits. This disconnect has caused me to become retrospective. Did that label every truly fit? Where did it come from?
I suppose it started with my love of video games as a kid (which has continued into adulthood). During high school digital technology was just beginning to explode. As a Freshman in high school, my class was the first to be offered "keyboarding" instead of "typing" as an elective. I am older so personal computers where not really a thing for the masses yet. However, my parents were college professors, so they had computers in their offices that I could practice using. When the college upgraded their computer systems, my parents asked the college if they could buy one of the old computers. So when I went to college, I was one of the few students who had a computer of my own. However, it was really only a word processing machine. (For you older readers, it had one of those really slow dot matrix printing machines where the pages where all connected and you had to tear them apart and tear of the sides.) I used it to write papers for my classes, but that was it. Not super tech savvy, but I was a technology user.
It was not until 3 years later that I got my first email account and started using the world wide web. Soon to follow was my first cell phone. It is funny looking back, but I was one of the people originally opposed to cell phones. I saw it as a leash. I can remember saying to my friends, "If I am out, then I am out. You can leave me a message, and I will get it when I get home. I don't need to be accessible 24/7!" (Perhaps this warrants a separate post. It is pretty funny to me how much has changed since then. Now I don't even own a home phone).
I became familiar with the Microsoft suite of programs throughout my undergraduate career and my first professional career as a statewide trainer. I had a Myspace page and began using email regularly during this time. However, I still don't think I considered myself tech savvy. I think it was my second professional career as a middle school teacher where I first put on this identity. Not long after I was hired at a local charter school (SAS - the best school in Tallahassee), I was approached by my principal to provide a list of technology I would like to have in my classroom. I was super excited! Throughout my master's degree program in math education, I was wowed by the many tools technology could bring into the classroom, especially SMART boards. So, I requested a SMART board, SMART remotes, graphing calculators, and a graphing calculator presenter. I got everything I asked for and my classroom became technology charged. Before long, I was the SMART board guru of my school. I setup training sessions with experts to build my own knowledge base, and soon I was leading my own training sessions to help other teachers more fully utilize their SMART boards. I became the technology person at the school; and for the next 7 years, I continued my journey into educational technology, mostly through informal learning.
I have continued to use the tech savvy label to describe myself... until now, upon encountering this course.
I guess the point of this post is that I never realized how much I did not know and how behind the technology curve I am currently. I guess the saying is true, "You don't know, what you don't know."
Cycling back to the beginning of this post, I am excited to be on this journey. Hopefully by the end of this course, I can again feel comfortable with the "tech savvy" label. As for now, I think I will choose the label "tech novice". = )
I would love to hear from others. What has been your biggest "Aha" moment of this course so far?