Growing up as a child my parents were divorced and I was raised by a single mother. Other than school I had never seen a computer nor did I know how to use one. I believe in middle school was the first time I was asked to type a paper. I remember my mom borrowed this huge typewriter from her job and brought it home for me to use. It was massive and I was scared! It made a lot of noise and I’m pretty sure I went through tons of paper figuring out how to work it. I used that type writer for years and I got pretty good at it I must say. Eventually after starting high school we had a library that had computers for students to do papers on and research things for class on them. I would do my papers on those but wasn’t really taught all the different things you could actually do on them. Finally in eleventh grade I had my first computer class and I really learned a lot about computers and all the wonderful things they could do. I would use the school library and the public library to write my papers and research things for school and that worked out pretty well for me. I sometimes would use my friends’ computers at their houses if I could not get to the library. Looking back it certainly was not easy not having a computer at home but I worked with what I had at the time. After graduation I didn’t go to college for about four years until 2005. Between the time of graduation and college I never used a computer I’m sad to say, except for my restaurant gig but those were not for anything other than sending orders to the kitchen. In 2005 when I moved to Florida and I started at BCC I was taken aback by all the different resources they had available. There were computer labs in almost every building and even some classes had computers available for each student. This may sound silly to some people but I just wasn’t used to that when I grew up. So many of my classes wanted papers typed I decided to finally buy my own lap top. I was so excited when I brought it home and I taught myself how to use email better, download pictures and music, and I even got myself a my space (it was cool at the time). I eventually bought an IPod and learned how to download the music from my computer on to my IPod. That was so much fun because music is my life and I got to take it everywhere I went. In 2007 I took a computer class at BCC and was taught how to use power point, excel, and use many of the features I had no idea were available for me at the time. I must say that class taught me so many things that I can not only use now but in my future career. I started UCF in the summer of 2010 and took two online classes which I had never done before. I really learned how to use computers even more when I did that. I learned to add attachments and post work that I had done. I really felt accomplished being able to take a class purely online by computer. I am still learning new things with computers today. I just recently learned how to blog for our class. Once I figured it out I enjoyed it a lot more than web courses because you can see everyone’s posts and comments on one page as you follow. I see many people even attach photos. I haven’t gotten that far yet but that is one of my goals by the end of the semester. Taking this class really opened my eyes to see how many digital components are out there at the touch of our finger tips. Usually new things that have anything to do with computers scares me but this semester I’ve learned that these new things aren’t really that hard once you figure them out and they can actually be fun once you do! As of recently I’ve joined the massive population of Facebook and see it as a great and easy way to stay in touch with family and friends. Last week I finally through my dinosaur phone out and purchased myself a smart phone. I still am trying to figure out all the different things I can do with it but it has been a fun learning process. I defiantly believe that I got a slow start on all the digital technology because my family really couldn’t afford it but I don’t think that I’m less intelligent than anyone else because of it. My mom did what she could and I could have been a lot worse off. I plan for my children to be able to have computers available in our home but the Internet these days scares me, so I do plan on having a “family” computer until they are old enough to be taught Internet safety.
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