Week+1+Monday+Jan+11


 * Tech and Me**

I have three livejournals running at the same time. I have a facebook page. I communicate via email with friends around the world. I surf then net constantly. If it involves typing or searching, I'm fine with it.

But programming? troubleshooting? creating a web page? not so much.

Meanwhile my sister is in computer aided design, and is one of the first people ever to have learned the technology, back in the 1980's.

Whenever there is a job vacancy in my field at Algonquin college, I apply. They want people with a lot of tech savvy, and that is one reason I wanted to take this course. The other reason is that I know chalk and talk just doesn't cut it anymore.

I was completely shocked at how many students were texting in class. My Associate Teacher let it go...I would ask the students to put their Ipod touches away. I also did not usually let students listen to their ipods. I just felt that they could not pay attention to me and text at the same time. I do not think you can listen carefully and text at the same time, or facebook or whatever. I am going to have to think this through, because it's going to be more and more of an issue. I HAVE calmed down a bit, though; when I taught at Heritage College I would feel personally offended if students were wearing their ipods. Now I just take it as a matter of course...and tell them calmly to put the ipods away.


 * New Things I learned Today**

We used wikispaces in my Schooling and Society class last term to post article summaries and to post our final group essay project, but, as usual, I learned enough about the site to do what I had to do and that's all. My tech-savvy friend, Arseni, did the actual posting of our group project (and the awkwardness of the site drove him bonkers.)

I'm now glad that I know how to upload a file and create a link. Below is a link to a word document.

[|5 Lesson Unit on.doc]

I am a bit nervous about being in a class with people 20 yrs or more younger than me, with 20 more years of experience in the wired world. On the other hand, I know all about being in classes where I'm imperfect since French is my second teachable and I'm constantly playing catchup in my French classes.

I have heard about google docs from Arseni but never used it. I lost five hours of work in December because my LMX 250 computer timed out, and my fellow students said I should have been saving to google docs.

I have not managed to load an image yet. I can't load one from facebook.