Sunday, February 3, 2008
Week #3, Thing #7 - Technology
I just realized that when I begin to learn something technology related, I go through a cycle of emotions. I start out excited to learn about the new technique or program or piece of equipment or whatever it is that has peaked my interest. Then I become so intent on studying and learning, I am almost obsessed and determined to master it. Soon, I am frustrated that I am spending so much time on it and not getting very far. I start to think that I should just be happy that I know what something is (flickr, RSS, wikis...) and leave it at that without ever planning to use it. Not being a quitter however, I plod on and spend more time until finally the task becomes second nature. When I became a teacher librarian four years ago, I came to a school library that didn't have a web page. I tried unsuccessfully to get students to make one, and then I looked into paying someone to do it. I soon realized that even if someone else made it, I would be the one to post to the web page and keep it updated; so I had better learn how to do it. I took a class in Dreamweaver, and thinking that I had enough of the basics, I attempted to build my page. It was not a pleasant eperience, as I didn't know enough and I had no one around to get quick answers. I took the class two more times and forced myself to keep building the page with a dog-eared Dreamweaver manual by my side. Today, it takes mere seconds to upload links, teacher assignments and images to the page. After all my hard work, I still get discouraged when I feel that not enough teachers and students are using it. But I have to think that they may be experiencing the same cyle of technology-learning frustrations that I do. Thus, I need to make sure that they get pleanty of exposure to the library web site and have lots of opportunity to explore with me by their side.
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2 comments:
Great post! What an excellent description of a learning cycle. Reminds me of the introductory sentence in the book "The Chosen," which said something along the lines of "in the beginning, all things are difficult," like learning to ride a bicycle. Then, it becomes second nature.
Hope you are also having fun!
Best wishes.
I know how you feel about having a great tool that you have spent a lot of time and thought creating and then feeling that no one is using it. The only way I get around this at school is to constantly point people to it, suggesting ways to use the website or the wiki or whatever.
I also had to get over the feeling that I had told everyone about something over and over and why can't they remember it? All of us have so much that clamors for our attention that I think we have to keep on providing the resource, so it is ready for that moment that we can use it to really help someone out. It's sort of like writing on your blog here and wondering if anyone is reading it and is it really worth the time you are spending on it. It is!
Read you here soon.
Librarymum of PageSpace
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