In the beginning I began my working life as a computer operator in an American bank. It was a fabulous start for me and one that was to start me off in the world of technology. Little did I know the strange path I would eventually find though. To start with the job was mainly operating very large, slow by today's comparison, main frame computers, that had the capacity to process what we now expect from something in our pockets. So, I guess I could be almost a digital native as I was only 18 when it all began...or am I kidding myself? Well if nothing else I became what we term computer literate, which was great because at the age of eight I could not read and my mother thought I was illiterate, so at least there was some progress. Well in terms of IT, progress is a major influence and now as an ICT lecturer in Swansea Institute, this word progress is something I take quite seriously.Take a look at the link if you want so see a little bit about my work and Swansea Institute
http://www.sihe.ac.uk/education/staff/peacem.html
I am intending to get my 1st year students to start a Blog journal this term, my hope is that they will continue to blog throughout their time here at Swansea Institute. I will keep you posted and hopefully put their links here too. So watch this space!
6 comments:
Your life sounds very interesting, and different are you happy were the life of computers has taken you? Do you think its the right path? I'm doing computers A level at the moment and wonder what different directions i could go in, if i decided to take it further?! The blog idea with you students sounds like a good idea. It gives people like me a chance to really see where a course takes you. I definitely will be back to read them. While it might give me a chance to see what teaching is like in the eyes of students my age! You have obviously been working with computers a long time do you ever get bored or tiered of them??
Pocahontas
A good start Mandy.
This exactly how I got started with computers.. using them rather than collecting "bits of paper".
I joined UWS in 1992 and was immediately tasked with CAD / CAM duties, with all the software running on a PC without Windows.
Everything was command line then, although you could use a mouse once the software had been started.
No training was given, I had to sit there and learn myself by making mistakes.. :-)
Using computers is much easier now with graphical desktops, Windows etc. and the same goes for the web too.
From it's very small public beginning in 1996 the WWW really has changed beyond recognition.
Have a look at http://www.archive.org where you can see what a website looked like in 1996.. Web 2.0 will have an enormous influence on the way we all think of and use the WWW.
For example, it is now possible to have online realtime access to a complete office suite for free.. and this is just the beginning.
This means you have access to all your work etc. from anywhere you can use a web browser.
See http://www.zoho.com/
Paul.
Hi Pocahontas, thanks for the comment. I think that computers have had a valuable input to my life and I hope that I can give some of my enthusiasm to my students. I can't say that I have ever tired of computers, but the speed at which technology moves on does scare me. I hope that you enjoy what ever you do, and I am sure that computers will play a big part in any students life, there isn't much choice these days really!
Hi Paul,
Thanks for that, I think that we much be of the same era! I will check out the 1996 web site, it is good to see how far we have progressed; I wonder what the future of the web holds for us? I will see what zoho.com suggest, it sounds like the way forward.
dtcttrxI first became interested in computers when I needed to write long pieces of work. It was fantastic not having to use liquid paper to correct all your mistakes and the final product looked so good - even on a dot matrix printer. Our children throught the games were fantastic and spent hours trying to kill off aliens just using the arrow keys.
I see blogging as a new way of learning through social interaction. You can pick up a theme and explore different perceptions and ideas. You can question people’s understanding and get them to look at different perspectives on the issue. It is non-threatening and there is no embarrassment about getting things wrong.
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