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| Photo Edited using Picasa |
My eldest son is turning 5 in a few weeks. This milestone birthday- that signifies the start of school, the loosing of baby teeth, the loss of my baby- has me feeling very sentimental. Every sideways smile and giggle makes me overflow with love for my children these days. However, as all parents know, the complete opposite can be true. There are those days we count down the hours till bed-time; days when our kids make us want to pull out our hair and scream in despair. My Technology Journey mirrors my parenting journey. This inquiry project for LIBE 477 has had its moments of elation, when I felt pure joy at learning something new, and those of frustration, when I felt like chucking my lap top out the window (a familiar feeling as documented in my Autobiography of a Technology User).
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| Image 3: Autobiography of a Technology User |
I stated in my Project Proposal at the beginning of this journey, “My main purpose in taking LIBE 477 is to push myself in the area of technology.” Pushing can be painful. I identified the area of technology as one of my weaknesses during LIBE 461 and intentionally took this elective course, before my required courses, to remedy this. I am pleased to report that my husband recently remarked how he has noticed a transformation in my confidence levels when it comes to technology. This confidence has brought with it a new attitude towards problem solving technology hiccups. This journey also leaves me with a new wealth of knowledge and a host of new tools to improve my teaching. Just as with parenting, in the end the pain is worth it!
At the beginning of the course, I was excited but equally intimated about entering unknown territory. I was pleasantly surprised in my explorations using Web 2.O tools such as Voicethread, Voki, Animoto, and Xtranormal how user friendly many of these tools are. In hindsight, this makes sense, as these sites need users to be sustainable. In all these tools, I found the formulaic 3 or 4 step process marked clearly with picture icons intuitively easy to navigate. The best part was the pay off- often for minimal effort. In particular, I love the way my Technology Mascot Voki and Art Animoto turned out; they were final products I shared with everyone and anyone who showed the least bit of interest. The ease of using these tools coupled with the strong final products definitely helped build my confidence level and motivated me to want to explore more.
Although, many of these tools are designed to be easy to use, it is inevitable that you encounter road blocks. The first for me was not knowing how to embed the Voki I had made onto my blog. Picture icons did not provide enough knowledge. I needed more detailed instructions. I found these in an online web tutorial posted by two middle school boys; this was a humbling experience for me. Lesson Learned: Now, if I don’t know how to do something web related, I Google it!
I also encountered glitches in the tools themselves- a login loop with Voki and having my text repeatedly freeze while using Xtranormal. In the past, these types of hiccups would have made me easily feel like giving up; by nature, I am the type of person who feels like I need to have all the right answers and wants results right away. I had to practice problem solving with a new attitude in this course. After trial and error, I realized that certain tools worked better with certain browsers. For example,Voki works better in Firefox, while Xtranormal works more efficiently using Internet Explorer. Although I don’t understand the why of it all, I have gained the ability to problem solve better when it comes to technology related issues. This has been a great personal accomplishment for me and has opened me up to learning more about technology.
Reflecting on my children’s growth and going through the process of trying something very challenging myself, reminded me of one of my all-time favorite Sesame Street clips, a formative message that I re-learned through this process- try and try again!
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