Goodbye, technology fears - hello, brave new online world!

Course Reflection Essay

My goals in taking the course

This course, as they say in one of my favorite shows, "American Idol," has been a "Journey" with a capital "J"! But success in this particular journey is not a recording contract or a Grammy. For me, it is simply to be comfortable enough in Web Technology to try new tools and to become sufficiently fluent in them to contribute some creativity to the media that I learn to produce. As a journalist for many years, I have communicated with newspaper readers primarily via the printed word and two-dimensional photos as part of a team of professionals, each with a job to do. Communicating through Web animations, avatars, audio podcasts, video slideshows with music - this is a real treat! This course has opened up new vistas for me. I have gained a new appreciation for the Web and its possibilities. This appreciation and greater understanding would be a gift in itself. If I can take it further and use the Web tools in projects, freelance work, or even just more enjoyable interaction in social media - that would be wonderful.

Overview: Tools of the trade

Some of the Web 2.0 tools we have used this semester are amazing, captivating and produce surprisingly pleasing results. I have loved learning and using Voicethread, Blogger, Wordle, Glogster, Animoto, Kizoa, AudioBoo and Voki. Going back over previous blog posts, I see that my attempts at Jing and Screencast were laughable, and even getting to a novice level in those "skills" was a really a struggle. But, for the most part, I have had a blast with these new technologies. Prof Dubuc's Screencast tutorials have been the touchstone for learning these tools. I sometimes have played them over and over and taken notes, before diving into the hands-on experience of using - and messing up with these tools. My mistakes were many, and the course did not come naturally to me. But eventually (and with helpful email answers to technical questions from our professor), I was able to complete each task. I have especially enjoyed and learned from the different ways my fellow students used many of these tools in their final projects. It was a real privilege to be part of such a creative group.
I hope to continue to gain new skills once the course has concluded. 

The companion piece to the splashier 2.0 tools has been gaining the ability to navigate the Web more effectively and safely, to do online research and to understand the Internet history and infrastructure behind the browsing experience. I didn't know even the basics about  setting browser preferences when I began this course. Now, I have more confidence in doing online research and in branching out in social media applications. I might even get a smart phone! 

My starting point

I began Intro to Web Technology with specific and narrow knowledge of newspaper Web technology that evolved after decades of being in the business. I could update a newspaper Web site whose framework had been created by our corporate office - with new stories, photos and YouTube videos. I could install a "widget" according to instructions written in "tech" language, after intensive efforts to teach myself the lingo and procedures. I worked the night shift for more than half of my career, so after the newspaper was "put to bed," in the later years of my employment, I would do my web updates and tinker with html language, peeking at code others had written to change the color of fonts or the size of a picture. I often stayed on by myself in the newsroom 'til 3 and 4 a.m. trying to figure out a particular puzzle presented by a Web task I didn't understand. I was hungry for useful knowledge about the Web - with no time to take a course, and no real mentoring or training available on the job. Everybody was just scrambling to get by, just like me. Retirement presented a new possibility - learning in a classroom environment, with a whole different take on deadlines!

Stepping off the beaten path

In better economic times for newspapers in the past decade, there would be an IT person AND a web editor on staff, so news editors like myself did not have to know much if any about the back-end structure of a Web site. Then, the IT department where I worked was reduced to a single staffer shared between four newspapers — and the Web tech position was eliminated altogether. That forced the wordsmiths to become Web savvy and tech savvy enough to get by and get the job done.

But I always wondered about the online world beyond the proprietary software I had to know for the job. My first steps - baby steps - were to start a Facebook account for a family group so we could share news between our annual reunions. Then - I decided to take this course, and I have been very happy that I did.

It has been a very hard course for me - but the rewards have been worth it.

Structure of the course

The textbook lessons were a good foundation for building skills and understanding the formation, growth and development of the Internet. I was nervous about launching into the Web 2.0 tools, but the tasks were well-structured from the easier to the more difficult, and we kind of built up our tech "muscles" gradually for the harder tools.

I liked the fact that the readings, quizzes and cyberlessons gave us a knowlege base, and the use of one tool helped us to gain skills on the next one. The What's On Tap," Web Labs, Assignments and Learning Journal assignments were spaced just far enough apart to let me catch my breath and get ready for the next challenge.

The mileposts in developing the final topic and project were helpful. I was forced to pick a topic, express it in a Voki, track  down resources, incorporate tools we'd learned and carry out a theme through web design concepts we had read about. Then, sharing progress reports and reviews with classmates was a culmination of the other Facebook group discussions we had shared about a variety of interesting and controversial aspects of Web technology. Without those internal deadlines, the project would have been even more intimidating!

Evidence of progress

I realized, once I began the final project, that it was possible to synthesize and combine the knowledge we'd gained into an ACTUAL Web site - awesome! I used iMovie, another tool I had never tried, in order to assemble the video interviews I shot. This wasn't a 2.0 tool, but if I hadn't learned the other tools, I would not have had the patience or confidence to try new software like this.

Tips for taking the DIG 110 course

1.) Don't save the cyber lessons - or any other of the learning module activities - to the last minute. Try to do a little each day. I am a procrastinator by nature and I am used to crashing toward a deadline as midnight approaches - just like I am doing right now! But you will enjoy and get more out of the course if you allow yourself extra time to go through all the side resources listed in the cyber lessons, for example. Similarly, you will enjoy blogging more if you give yourself enough time to collect your thoughts and review your previous posts.

2.) Pick a final topic you are REALLY interested in, so you're more motivated to do the research and so your Web site is something that you'll get lasting value from. As you do the lessons leading up to the final project, use your project topic as the theme for your Animoto, for instance, or your Glogster, so you have some of the material for your project prepared in advance.

3.) Have fun when you are doing the lessons. You will learn more cool stuff than you could have imagined - and your friends will be impressed with the results when you send them an Animoto or post a Voki on your Facebook page. You'll end up teaching them how to use some of these tools!

Summary

This has been a great course that will be helpful in learning almost anything in the digital information age. I highly advise taking this course as a prerequisite to develop your ability to navigate on the Web, do effective scholarly research and express yourself creatively with cutting edge Web tools. Never stop learning!