I used to consider myself quite computer savey or techie way back in the day when I was teaching my coworkers how to email and use the internet, word processing etc.. I felt confident and up to date. All the sudden, one day I woke up and there were so many new processes, social networks, software, hardware, tweets and on and on... It made my head spin. Hopefully this class will help me feel more confident again!
With trepidation, I started the first assignment of setting up a blog which was thankfully, quite easy to do. I seem to find any roadblock in navigating new "computer" territory to be frustrating but this went smoothly. There were minor set-backs, like trying to figure out how to add to my first blog, figuring how to use spellcheck and making an avatar. The avatar information was easy enough to find, it was just too many choices that would have taken me a day to sift through, so I chose to skip it for now.
I did read through some of the suggested blog sites - found many interesting articles and they are all so current and real time - ie: people experiencing the earthquake in Chili first hand. There are some talented writers out there - many of the articles in KevinMD were interesting and well written. After seeing just a tiny bit of how many articles or blogs that are out there, it amazes me that there are still any magazines in existence. Good thing there are still people out there like me, that until this point were not looking for alternate reading avenues.
It does concern me that it seems so many people are putting their entire life on public display with all these networking options. I recently joined Facebook and am amazed about how people choose to publish all of their personal thoughts and daily activities. I am still getting used to having a cellphone which feels like a chain that continuously connects me to anyone. The future generations will not know what it is to have a "private" life or to go somewhere with the freedom that no one can get ahold of you for a while. I personally value my privacy and find it sad to think that it seems to be a part of life that will cease to exist in the future. It is also important to remember that your online personal life can affect your worklife and is something always to keep in mind. Any information that we post is out there for current or potential future employers to see.
Doing this first assignment took me about an hour and a half.
