Blog 5

Adult Learning the point of no return?

I work as tech support for the Chemistry college of USC. And we have a couple of adult Faculty members that are pretty much oblivious to change. Anything from the icons on the desktop not in the right place to the way a programs opens up. They hate change even though it can improve function in their field and lifestyle. You will get an ear full if the computer doesn’t do exactly the way they want. Why is the older generation so uptight about change when the younger generation seeks change? For my part in the online teaching of Google I am going to teach the usage of Picasa by Google. The good thing about this situation is that these adults are looking for or finally accepting the need for change.

From past experience I have notice that older adults just want to do things the way they have be doing things for years. I guess the younger generation is just more use to multi-tasking and changes in technology that it seems natural for change. But I can’t really blame them because if I was 60 or above I would hate to learn new things that discard my previous knowledge. But right now my brain wants to know why things work so I can use them. The other generation could care less and just use bits and pieces of the technology capability to just get by. Ignorance leads to identify theft and security issues. Most of them could care less about security they think they are immune for some reason. People take advantage of those types of people.

My question to this whole post is why older people hate change? I respect those that try and make effort to accept change. It’s not that I disrespect them it’s more of feeling sorry for the way they don’t care to try and it could hurt them in the end.

Blog 4

Reflections

Most of the needs assessment part was already developed before we began the team project. Matthew Ligon met with the coordinator of the SC Department of Education, to discuss which subject he would like for the workshops and how we should approach them. There is a need to inform teachers about Google Apps because as technology becomes more important to the education system there is a growing need to have technical skills. These Google Apps could help assist them in the classroom and outside the classroom. Many teachers don’t make use of new technologies especially those that derive from the web 2.0 technologies. My module focuses on the subject of Google Picasa and Google Talk. Since we switched the models some we need to clear up who’s now doing what in the models. I will be working along with Christopher Lambert on either of the two Apps and help develop a story board. Picasa is a great photo and image manager that will help aid teachers who use a lot of visual aids. Google Talk will create better communication between teachers and students with real time talking abilities that rival that of Skype but without the phone service. I think the best thing about Google Apps is that Google offers these Apps free of charge, which is really great because of the bad economy.

For the design phase we talked about the method on how we are going to produce screen capturing with CamStudio on virtual machines, if necessary. We also did some reconstructing of our original scheduled tasks and rearranged them to better subsidize the modules. The Nicenet website will allow us to construct our own working area similar to that of blackboard for teaching purposes with the ability of discussion boards. The screen capture videos will probably be hosted on Youtube for easy access and service free solutions. I personally never performed any screen capturing in order to help teach someone how to perform tasks and for informative purposes. I will gain insight and observation on what maybe my weaknesses and strengths in this style of teaching. It can allow me to help people by giving videos demonstrating tasks and solutions to computer problems.