The semester is just about finished and once again I look back in wonder at what my classmates and I have managed to accomplish. Projects that seemed so daunting in January are now finished and graded. At… More
Entering the World of Gifs
So, in the past three weeks I’ve created my first blog, published my first blog post, redesigned said blog, learned some rudimentary html, and designed and started hand tagging a website. Yet my moment of triumph was realized through a simple copy/paste: I sent my first gif via text.
For years I’ve envied this form of expression and the ability to find just the right witty and culturally relevant image that will convey your thoughts or emotions. But who has time for that? When I’m texting, my mission is to send my message out quickly. Perhaps it’s a holdover mindset from phone conversations. Too much time between texts is too much like that awkward silence on the phone when both parties have run out of things to say. Since my first post, though, I’ve made an effort to not use lack of need or time as an excuse to not use new technology or delve more deeply into social media.
So when my two sons started lobbing gifs at each other during a group text with me, I did what any aspiring librarian would do: I asked them what their source was and what search string they used. My actual words were more like “Where do you get those and how do you find them?” After a faulty start, (who knew gifs needed to be animated and that they have no sound?) I sent:
And they were like
She did it!
It still takes me forever to find a good one, but I’m having fun with it.
On a more serious note, my website is coming along great. Surprisingly, I love the detail aspect of it: scouring the code and trying to figure out why the page doesn’t look like you expect. Most of the times it’s something as simple as a missing semicolon or apostrophe; other times I realize that what I’m trying to do is way over my abilities and I need to simplify. But in the end, I plug along, learning, experimenting and having fun.
Thoughts on Technology
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By secretlondon123 (Flickr: analogue modem) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
The sound now belongs in a museum, but I’ll always vividly remember the first time I heard it: that crackling static and then the piercing beep of a modem. “It’s 2400 baud,” my husband said proudly.
“What the heck is that? What does it do? Where’s the volume?!”
My husband has worked in the IT industry for over thirty years. For most of that time I’ve (mostly willingly) been learning about computers, software, hardware, peripherals, quality assurance, application life cycle management, and the thousands of acronyms the IT industry creates and uses. Because of his knowledge and availability I’ve never been afraid to play around with my computers – help is always nearby should I get into trouble.
My stumbling block with learning new technology has always been time and energy. I know setting up a blog is relatively easy, but I had no need or desire to maintain one. I wanted to learn to create a website, but again, there was no need. Without a need, chores and responsibilities get in the way.
This is one of the big differences in the way I view technology and the way my sons, for example, view it. My computer and phone are tools and I learn as the need arises. My sons, who are both young adults, use it to play, connect with people and have no problem spending hours learning a new program. Perhaps it’s a factor of the relative simplicity of their lives at this time. When the ice bucket challenge was popular a few summers ago they spent days filming each other and learning how to use a video editing program. The results were hilarious – it helps that they’re both funny and creative.
I’m not sure how much I agree with the ‘digital native’ and ‘digital immigrant’ metaphor. The implication is that digital immigrants will never be as proficient as natives. People of my generation (Gen X) are considered immigrants, but are we really? Computers and mobile phones existed when I was born – the Baby Boomer Generation invented them, and my generation came alongside and helped IT explode. The problem was that the technology was so expensive most of us never saw a computer or video game until we were in high school or college. But most adults my age (at least in my geographical area) are technologically fluent.
I think we focus too much on the generational gap and not enough on the economic one. I live in an affluent area. All of the teenagers that I work with and mentor have smartphones, IPads and laptops. Although the majority of them have limited knowledge of the technology behind their gadgets, they have the ability and the resources to obtain that knowledge if they desire. Forty-five minutes south of me lies the city of Camden, NJ. For many years it had the honor of being the most murderous city in the country. Educators are scrambling to get IPads and Chromebooks into the classrooms to ensure the kids will learn to use the internet and word processing programs. But so much more than that is needed. Baby Boomers and Generations X & Y need to make sure subsequent generations are equipped to continue creating and innovating. We need to ensure they are much more than consumers of the technology we have created.
Loving the Second Half 