Our Final Farewell.

When growing up and being exposed to the world of technology it isn't a matter of if you are interested but how far gone you have become. You see, there's no escaping the influence and the use of it. Regardless your feelings on the matter, it is here, and as the years pass, ever increasing in its presence. So what do you do to smoothly ride along these new waves of tech? You get educated and you get acquinted.

I'd never considered myself to be one who was absent of all technological understanding. I certainly don't live under a rock. But if there was a way to measure how much a person could know about the entire ocean of technology, I'd say I knew about 2 tub fulls. Yea, not that much. How would I know this you ask. Well when you've been introduced (within 5 short weeks, I might add) to things you never knew existed, you revaluate your previous ideas.

This course has been frustrating at times, yes, but the end gain has been without a doubt immeasurable. Who would have believed I'd be familiar with words like Wiki, PhotoStory, or Ning?? Certainly not me. But can I now edit and post on a Wiki? Create and display my own PhotoStory? Search for and establish book clubs on Ning? To those questions, it would be a resounding YES! Pretty cool, huh?

And before you ask, no, there's no way I would have naturally come across any of it outside of this IT course. Each class period we would explore something new and strenghten our very weak skills throughout the 2 and a half hour chunk of our lives.

However, as I have mentioned before, this wasn't an easy walk through the park. Sure some of the material, like blogs and podcasts, was nothing new to me, but the things that were not were frustrating at best. Even though it was exciting to learn about things of the technological world that were foreign to me, the format in which learning them was, perhaps, a bit overwhelming. We would be given something new to learn, given a few details about it, and then prompted to apply that newly acquired knowledge. There were moments when my face was plastered with a blank stare as I hoped for some wires to connect and understanding to prevail triumphantly. But unfortunately, sometimes I just had to ask.

But do not misinterpret this news with any lack of good feelings about the course. I certainly did enjoy it; that is clearly explained above. There aren't many horrible things you can say about something that has actually taught you applicable information to your life and future occupation. I would say that this is a package deal I would gladly take again.

So on this final farewell I leave with new perspectives, a hopeful heart, and a few tools ready for use. In sum: not bad. Not bad at all.