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Tonight’s class made me revisit my childhood to think about some of the dreams that I had when I was a little girl. During tonight’s presentation Martha asked us to share dreams that we had when we were children. At first, I did not think that I had any dreams; but as soon as some of my peers began to share their dreams it made me recall that I had a lot of dreams when I was young. Somehow the reality of having to grow up so quickly made be put aside some of my dreams without realizing it.
When I was younger, I wanted to be a lawyer. I am not sure whether, this was truly one of my dreams or if it was something that I wanted to do because my family thought I had the traits of a lawyer. When I refer to traits lawyers possess, I am referring to defending the rights of myself and others not to lying or deceitfulness, words that are now commonly used to refer to lawyers. Somewhere in grade five or six, I realized that being a lawyer meant years of attending school and getting perfect or near perfect grades. At this point I began to think a little differently about being lawyer. That is not to say that I totally gave up on being a lawyer as I was extremely impressed by the salary and of course helping people.
I always wanted to be a school teacher but I was drawn to younger children and the pedagogy of early learning environments where children were able to learn through play versus the more structured environment of an elementary classroom.
Another dream that I had was that of being a flight attendant. This was something that I actually dreamt about while being a lawyer or a teacher were practical careers that I shared with friends and family. Each night I would dream about the Seven Wonders of the World, Canada where mom was waiting for us and all of the places in “foreign” that I heard or read about. I half jokingly shared in class that I gave up on my dream of being flight attendant because I found out that one could not drink six hours before a flight or when on call. The truth of the matter is that I gave up my dream of being a flight attendant when I became a teen mother, because I realized that a single mother could not be a flight attendant and an engaged parent. So I gave up on the idea of being a flight attendant and traveling all over the world.
I am delighted that I had the opportunity to watch Randy Pausch’s video. The overall message about allowing and encouraging children to achieve their dreams resonated with me. The majority of the phrases and quotes made a huge impact on me. Some of my favourites were the “head fake”; “Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want”; “Brick walls are there to show our dedication”; “The best way to teach someone something new is to not make them think they’re learning something else”; and “Luck is when preparation meets opportunity”. Lastly, the most meaningful message for me was that when angry or upset with someone and you are waiting for them to make a change – just continue to wait. They will almost always impress you.” This message gave me hope that a relationship that I was about to give up on may change. I felt as if I made all of the effort to mend the relationship and the effort was not being appreciated or reciprocated. This message came at the time that I was ready to give up home. I am going to hold on the dream of repairing this relationship by being patient and acknowledging that the brick wall is there to show that I am dedicated to making a change.
Tonight’s topic on social media was extremely interesting. As I continue to acquaint myself with the use of the World Wide Web, new concepts continue to pop up. The possibilities that social media offers and the manner in which folk culture has changed with social media are astounding. Folk culture responds to the need of people to be active social participants in the creation of their culture something that I don’t believe that I am very good at doing.
Recently, I shared my resistance to technology and being the last to purchase a CD player, MP3s and a cell, phone. Now I believe I am also one of the few individuals left on the planet that has not joined a social network such as Face book. Now I am hearing about Twitter and Flicker; when does it end. It seems like I will never get caught up. The technological changes that have happened over the last ten years have been abundant, yet according to Alex, we are only in the infancy stages of how technology can allow individuals to share, create and perform.
I am so pleased to be a part of this learning environment. I learn so many new things and receive clarification on terms that I continue to see and hear. For example, tonight I learned that social media are forms of living libraries or informal learning environments where people are part of the community responsible for the information shared. They are self organizing, informal communities creating and participating in public discourse. After tonight’s class I have a better understanding of how Wikipedia and RSS feed works. I recall once that I was reading an interesting article on Wikipedia when the author stopped the argument and asked for others to support the argument. At the time I was perplexed, now I finally understand what was happened. As well, now I know that an RSS feed is used to update real time information. I also learned that copy left means the opposite of copyright. Organizations waiting to create different communities, communities where conversations are taking place such as Flicker use copy left.
Growing up, I was one of those naive individuals who believed technology to be for other people. I always thought I could do without it and that I did not need to change with the times. When people started to buy CDs I insisted on sticking with my audio cassettes. When they switched to DVDs I was still using videos. I was one of the last in my group of peers to get a cell phone, a CD player and a computer. As a matter of fact, one of my girlfriends was just teasing me the other day because according to her I finally got a decent phone.
Working on the floor as an ECE I used the office computer to create labels, print children’s stories, play music, and for research purposes. When I worked with kindergarten children, my room partner who was a computer buff really wanted a computer for the children. At first, we used old computers donated by families. Since the computers donated were old, they quickly broke down and were taken apart and investigated by the children. We ended up fund-raising for the money to purchase a new computer and printer. Children were given weekly time slots and free time when anyone could play on the computer. They took turns playing cognitive games, games for manual dexterity and eye hand coordination. As well, math and science games, songs, videos, and typing activities were enjoyed by the children using the computer.
They say that necessity is the creator of inventions or something like that. I was forced to become acquainted with technology because of work and school. I was never taught how to use a computer, yet I manage to complete my assignments and my job using computer technology. As the supervisor of a child care centre the use of technology is an integral aspects of my job. Although, I am not an experienced computer user, it is difficult to imagine my daily life without the use of a computer. After all, how else would I stay in touch with Blackboard and Ryerson email?
Word Press?
Maureen
Hi,
I think I’ve done it!
Maureen
