sample

I am a student at Drake University
email me

workplace thoughts

Challenges for using new technology at our workplace that I had not given much thought it is the fact that we do no have anyone on staff under 30.  The younger generation of workers seem to embrace new web-based tools more rapidly than those of  us that have been around for awhile. Adapting our style of learning and doing business thus is going to take a bit of time...just like it took me a bit of time to get used to the idea of blogging!

The pressure is on for me to become familiar with various tools of communicating and collaborating that are driving a new revolution in the work place.  I see this from my children as well. I think that given an open mind- we all have much to learn from each other.

emergency relief

Having been a relief worker for Hurricane Katrina, I was amazed when I read this section in our book. I had forgotten how many people were using blogs and other technologies to communicate about their concerns.

I had no idea how these various technologies were used by innovative people to offer hope in such devastating time. Wonderful way of putting people across the world to work for such a wonderful cause. It is rewarding for me to read about this but at this point it is beyond my wildest imagination for me to be able to contribute as anything more than a data entry person. Yet each role is important!!

work place useage

Having co- workers that work in campus based office space as well as at home offices can make for frustration as we work on different projects.  I see this type of environment being very helpful  on a basic level of just keeping up to date on what projects we are individually as well as collectively working on.  Each of us could add comments or suggestions that would help with the flow of ideas as we go along on a project. My guess is from what I have been reading is that we will come up with creative ideas that may have taken a lot longer to be tapped on our own.

I also see the potential of our class participants that take our classes being able to give us insights on how we could make our product more helpful to them as we are in the process of designing it.  With these additional thoughts and comments we would be able to foresee problematic issues before they take place in class and make it the material more applicable. 

I made it

After reading several different articles about how to set up my blog for class, I finally made it! What strikes me as interesting about this whole process is that traditionally I could consider myself to be a risk taker. Willing to try just about anything without giving it a great deal of thought. However, with processes related to the Intenet, I am not. I devoted two days to studying on how to "do it right" before I was ready to actually take the action necessary to set up my blog.

That is amazing to me. It has provided with me an opportunity to reflect on how different an experience this is for me compared to my "net generation" children. They are eager for interaction and more confident to try new technology of any kind. I certainly find the comment in our text about them being "authorities on the digital revolution' to be accurate. It brings up interesting conversations at the kitchen table as I ask them questions about how to navigate this new media.

Once I have played around on it for awhile, I gain confidence and am willing to move onto trying different functions. That initial hesitation is gone but it has taken up time. I typically do not observe my children taking the time to read something first than moving to the application-they seem to be comfortable moving directly into giving it a try and making mistakes as they learn "live".

My approach to learning related to what I consider "live" open sources of information is different than what I would do with other software applications. I am more cautious when using blackboard discussion boards, discussion threads on line and a blog because I want to know the rules before I post. I find it important to honor the guidelines in these live arenas. However, if I download software off the Internet or buy a program and install it on my computer, I am likely to just jump in and try it without ever reading the directions. I find this difference in my approach to learning interesting and figure that at some point posting will become as comfortable for me as loading software and trying it out!

but for now, I did it!! my first posted is complete.