Nanette+is+intrigued



This isn't my **//How I Learned Technology//** story yet. It's just a few notes to help me start thinking about it. I'm grateful to Liza and the rest of the HCLE crew for providing the digital space do this. Even more, I appreciate the invitation to reflect on this whole topic in the first place. The title of my page, **//Nanette is Intrigued//**, is actually an understatement. The wheels in Nanette's brain are spinning like mad.

Things my story may or may not include:
 * My painful introduction to computer word processing in 1987. So painful I thought my fledgling newspaper career was about to be aborted.
 * The evolution of my use of computers and other technology in my journalism, library and education careers. The only pieces of technology I used in my first high school teaching job (Marian Heights Academy, 1982) were the slow and bulky photocopier in Sr. Mary Dominic's office and the mimeograph machine in Sr. Mary Regis' room. I can still remember the smell of that purple ink when I cranked out those copies by hand. It was sort of wonderful, actually. I feel a little sorry for today's K-12 students and teachers, because they will never get to experience that.
 * The continuing debates about technology in the public library community (academic libraries resolved most of them long ago). What will e-readers do to our print collections? Should we hang on to those musty old reference books that no one has cracked in months? "I got into this field because I love books, and now I'm supposed to know how to design a web page." (and similar comments I've overheard).
 * My agreement with Liza's comment in her //**Inside the Technical Loop article**// for Dane Hall School: It's not the technology itself that is so intimidating, but the quantity ... all those little details. They make relatively simple steps appear more daunting than necessary.
 * My struggle with resentment over my inadequate technology training in library school. My MLIS degree is only five years old. You'd think dinosaur creation would take a little longer than that, but you'd be wrong. So much has changed in such a short amount of time. Even the job titles of today leave me baffled. What the heck does a "digital services librarian" even do? I can't put all the blame on UW-Milwaukee, but I do feel frustrated. Today's library school graduates come out knowing coding. My courses covered things like how to make a reference pathfinder. In print.
 * The fascinating Steve Jobs speech from 1980 that inspired a [|blog post] about the equipment I used in my early journalism career. Jobs had his whole life ahead of him here, and he is so incredibly charming you can't take your eyes off him. No wonder the world fell in love with him. "We're building tools that amplify human ability." Yes, that is exactly right. And it is quite the understatement.

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 * The library school paper I wrote examining best practices for teaching technology to the elderly, my subsequent research at conferences, workshops and sites like AARP and WebJunction, and my work designing and teaching computer workshops as a library director. I love this kind of work.
 * Last night's conversation with my teenage daughter, Simone, and her friend Holly about the use of technology in their high school. They think the money our small district has spent on interactive whiteboards (now in virtually every classroom) and iPads has largely been a waste. Only a few of their teachers really know how to use them well, they said. "Just think if they had spent that kind of money on a new outdoor track," said Simone.
 * The bemused look on both girls' faces when I tried to describe the classroom technology in use when I was in high school: filmstrips and 35-mm films. We thought it was nifty when the filmstrip came with audio narration.
 * The absolute joy I felt last summer, when I worked as a domestic interpreter in the Wade House, a 19th Century pioneer inn. I got to spend whole days without using a keyboard of any kind. The women back then did use a whole bunch of technology, especially in the kitchen. But it was all powered manually.
 * This is just a start. And totally unedited. You've certainly brought back a lot of memories and thoughts.