Skip to main content

Digitally illiterate

Yep, that is me. In addition to my bullying class, I am also taking a class on digital literacy. I figured if I want to return to the classroom (which I am still not 100 percent sure I want to do), I should be aware of the technology teachers and students are using. Fellow teachers are throwing around words like promethean boards and elmo projectors. Here I thought Elmo was just the furry red monster. Sigh.

I used a Mac for 13 years at my last job. I do not like PCs, but, alas, this is what we have at home. When I put in a disk last week, it took me almost five minutes to figure out where it went. On a Mac, it would have shown up on my desktop. But on PC, I had to go somewhere else (where, I already forget).

I cannot figure out how to close and not quit out of programs (I want command W!). My computer seems to freeze/lock up way more than the Mac ever did. And when it does, I get this irritating message that asks me if I want to "End Now." Except now is more like three or four minutes. Apparently we have different definitions.

Brian asked me yesterday if a speaker was plugged into the computer (no sound was coming out of said speaker at my mom's). I found three cords coming out of the speaker and ending up in a river of cords and cables on the floor, and I gave up. I have no idea how people figure out what goes where. The same is true of our beloved 42" HD flat screen. I have trouble just going back and forth from the DVD player to regular cable TV.

I was delighted to discover recently I could "follow" other blogs and include them (blog name and last post) on my blog page. This meant I could now tell when my favorite blogs were last updated, without having to go to each blog from my favorites list. You would have sworn I discovered the cure for cancer, I was so excited.

Technology is also a little too intrusive. A few months ago, a chat feature appeared in my yahoo email. All of a sudden a message popped up from I guy I went to high school with. I practically jumped. I am also concerned about being "seen" online, another recent (at least to me) feature. I now know which of my yahoo contacts are online at any given minute. I think they can tell I am online only if I am in their address books too, but honestly I am not sure, and that kind of freaks me out too. And don't even get me started about doing a google search. I hate that my name is uncommon and I am so out there.

I know there is no avoiding technological advances, so I better learn to figure them out, beyond the basic features of Microsoft Office, blogging and Facebook. But I am going to do it kicking and screaming, and not without great struggle.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What a year 2021 has been (Day 7)

I have almost no words for what happened yesterday at the Capitol. Protesting is one thing (though I truly think it is and has been time to move on). But to storm the Capitol? A friend on Facebook said, quite simply, " Almost 20 years ago a group of people on an airplane sacrificed themselves to protect the Capitol. How far we have fallen!" Indeed. And, yes, it IS storming the Capitol. I have seen numerous videos of people knocking down barricades/fences, pushing police officers, and breaking windows and climbing through them. That is beyond protesting. And even if a protestor did not do those things, if they followed those seditionists past those barricades and into the building, they are just as guilty. I did not support the violent protests this summer that resulted in damages to businesses and public property (I was in full support of the actual protests). But I also acknowledged as a white person, I cannot truly put myself in the position of a black person who is angry a
Post a Comment
Read more

Melancholy and Gratitude

 A few days ago, I decided to do gratitude posts on FB. I was good the first two days. Day 3 I got a little snarky as I posted about "doing the right thing" in regards to Covid. The Covid cases in Allegheny County have been on the rise. For a while, we had daily counts between 50 and 100. After July 4, we saw a spike for a few weeks, and then cases were back below 100. Unfortunately, other than one "low" day this week, where "only" 288 cases were reported, we have had between 500 and 620 daily cases. Fortunately, only a few people have died this week. But of course, any death is too many. I started to keep track of cases, deaths, and hospitalizations on 6/12/20. On that day, since 3/12, Allegheny County had had 2,034 cases, 352 people had been hospitalized, and 172 people had died. On 11/19/20, the county has seen a total of 22,042 cases, 1,724 people have been hospitalized, and 465 people have died from Covid since 3/12. In just over 8 months, we have had
Post a Comment
Read more

Hug your loved ones!

I hate to say that I am still working through my grief. I mean, in some ways I can imagine I will always be grieving. But I feel pretty confident it will get easier, and I will cry less and less. But, yeah, I guess I am still working through it. Yesterday, a thought occurred to me: I had not hugged my dad since the end of February, and that will now be the last time I ever did. I did not see him for almost three months because of COVID, and then at the end of May, he started his series of hospital visits with skilled nursing stints in between. I was always afraid to hug him then. What if I gave him COVID? And yet when my dad had really bad ICU delirium during a few different hospital stays, I fed him. If I could do that, why not hug him? So I cried a bit last night thinking about that. I am not necessarily a big hugger; I used to hate it, and then probably before Jordan was born, I got back to doing it again. Before COVID, I hugged my friends goodbye (and sometimes hello). I always wou
Post a Comment
Read more