Information Literacy in Real Life and in Second Life

Note: I've been planning to write something on Second Life for some time, and when I wrote my editorial for the current issue of Education Libraries (a journal which I edit) my thoughts came out in that. So I invite you to read that here. It's rather a long piece, so kick your shoes off and relax.

Abstract

We’ve all heard the phrases Information Literacy, Media Literacy, Visual Literacy and the rest. Are they the same, part of a continuum, or just some Big Amorphous Blob? This article explores these sometimes esoteric concepts and bring them into real life so they will be esoteric no more. Even better, I’ll delve into the remarkable new application Second Life and why your capacity in Information Literacy, useful as it is in real life, is even more necessary in the online world. Please join me for an interesting perspective on this merging of the intellectual and the virtual.

Information Literacy in Real Life and in Second Life

Back in the years of yore when I was a student at Temple University, I took a batch of communications classes in pursuit of my degree in video production. In one of the more esoteric ones, we often debated the meaning of media literacy as it related to the media of the time, circa early 1980’s. Did such a concept even exist? If so, what was it, and was it even relevant to our work? At the time, the consensus was no.

Today, the debate on that existence and relevance has been made moot by thirty years and a proliferation of information so vast, it’s nearly immeasurable. I was typing those youthful term papers on a portable electric typewriter which was pretty nifty at the time because it had an automatic correction function, and it is to my PC today that same vast, nearly immeasurable distance. Today, we all see the results of what we call information, or perhaps technological literacy (broadly speaking). You may not know exactly what these phrases mean yet, but they affect your ability to get a job, buy a house, pay your bills, and so much more.

What is Information Literacy then? What about Media Literacy, Visual Literacy and the rest? Are they the same, part of a continuum or just some Big Amorphous Blob?

Let’s look at some definitions before we move on. Just so you know, there are as many definitions for these phrases as there are students with esoteric communications degrees, so I selected the ones that are short, concise, and have an excellent provenance.

Visual Literacy

Based on the idea that visual images are a language, visual literacy can be defined as the ability to understand and produce visual messages. This skill is becoming increasingly important with the ever-expanding proliferation of mass media in society. As more and more information and entertainment is acquired through non-print media (such as television, movies and the internet), the ability to think critically and visually about the images presented becomes a significant skill. Visual literacy is something learned, just as reading and writing are learned. It is very important to have the ability to process visual images efficiently and understand the impact they have on viewers.

~ AT&T/UCLA Initiatives for 21st Century Literacies (1)

Information Literacy

Information Literacy is defined as the ability to know when there is a need for information, to be able to identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively use that information for the issue or problem at hand.

~ National Forum on Information Literacy (2)

Digital Literacy

Digital literacy is more than just the technical ability to operate digital devices properly; it comprises a variety of cognitive skills that are utilized in executing tasks in digital environments, such as surfing the web, deciphering user interfaces, working with databases, and chatting in chat rooms.

~ Eshet-Alkali & Amichai-Hamburger (3)

Media Literacy

Media Literacy is a twenty-first century approach to education. It provides a framework to access, analyze, evaluate and create messages in a variety of forms — from print to video to the Internet. Media literacy builds an understanding of the role of media in society as well as essential skills of inquiry and self-expression necessary for citizens of a democracy.

~ Center for Media Literacy (4)

Now just as a side note, and perhaps an appetizer to encourage you to read my interview with Tamara Moats on the Visual Thinking Process (VTP) which she uses in her work as a museum curator in teaching students how to see art in a new and different way. I asked her how she saw visual thinking as part of the larger scope of Information and Visual Literacies that we’re exploring here. Tamara gave me not the pedagogical definition, but one more from the heart. She said:

“I see it as something that pervades all aspects of the contemplative life. Art is a reflection of society, of a people, of an individual. It is a pathway to the soul. It stimulates us to think, even for just a few minutes, in a new way, and in that sense, open new pathways in the mind…. It is about the experience, either sensual or rational, and whatever message we might gain from it. The idea of visual literacy has become important currently because we are so bombarded with imagery every waking moment. It is important to become visually literate, or visually discerning, in order to survive.”

I include her perspective here because it’s easy to get lost in the practical applications of all this literacy stuff, and forget that it is also entirely engaged in the way that we move through the world. With this in mind, allow me to invite you to step back a little and see if we can get a grasp on how all these concepts, definitions, and spirals of fancy come together in a real life way. One place they all come into play is in Second Life (SL) where I have recently begun my explorations through my Avatar named SuperTechnoGirl. SL is a fine example of the confluence of all these types of literacies, although perhaps not “real life” as you may define it. On the one hand, it uses a conceptual framework that allows us to look at the world of SL in a visual and spatial way as we are used to doing in real life such as walking around. For example, when you go shopping in SL, you may teleport to the store, but you’ll actually “walk” through each room of the store, just as you would in real life. This is important because we all need building blocks of the familiar before we can move on to the unfamiliar. On the other hand, SL also requires us to move through space, conduct business, and interact with other people (Avatars) in a way that is completely novel.

Second Life is not simply a game where you go to play and win or lose. In fact, it’s not a game at all, and there’s nothing in particular to win or lose. Of course I’m sure that there are some people who do go there just to goof around, flirt, or maybe to spend hours designing clothing or some such. And I’m sure there are some games there as well if you were to seek them out. But let’s face it, most of us don’t have the time, interest, or motivation to spend our life that way.

Think of Second Life instead as a place to do what you do in real life, but through your computer. Take me as an example, being as I’m the only one here. Aside from my interest in cool boots, I like to hang out with other writers, information professionals, and people into emerging technologies. On the one hand, just exploring SL is a shot at my goal of learning new technologies, and where better to meet those info pros than say at the Special Libraries Association SL space? SL describes it as allowing organizations to create space for communication, collaboration and community engagement. You can hold virtual meetings and classes, construct product simulations, provide employee training and more.

There is also real business being transacted (I’ve spent about $20 US so far, which actually buys quite a lot there), visited a number of stores that most definitely do not exist in Vermont, and sat on a beautiful beach and watched the waves crash against my wicker chair as I listened to the sounds of the surf. Is it all imaginary? Well, it depends on how philosophical you want to get. Ideas and information aren’t “real” in the sense of being concrete, but they are certainly authentic enough. Second Life is another place – although not a traditional “place” as we generally define it – to explore, live, learn, and play. It is another reality that is as existent as ideas and creativity, and of course if you have the right skills – as with all things – there’s money to be made.

Let’s talk a little about how Information and the other literacies come into play here because I’ll tell you, SL actually is rather a challenge to learn, and if I didn’t have all of my literary ducks in a row, I would have long since given up. (I still sometimes consider it.)

Visual Literacy in SL

SL is almost completely a visual medium, although of course if you’re a wee bit tech-savvy, friends can chat with you by voice (microphone and speaker), or through digital transformations of their typed words. The downside of this intensely visual side of things is that often as in life, how we look is unfortunately almost more important than who we are. In my first few discussions with various SL participants, I heard more comments about my lack of taste in hair and clothing than I ever heard about who I was, what I did for a living, or anything else that actually means anything. The interesting thing is that in the real world, I’m sure these same people would never have the nerve to criticize me out loud. I’m almost thinking I’d rather live in real life and not hear it when it comes to this, but I’ll persevere anyhow.

I was annoyed as you can imagine, although I had a vague feeling it had something to do with that “you’re in or you’re out” group mentality. I was clearly “new” so I also was clearly “out” with some groups where that was important (not groups where I was likely to return). Although I gave it back to the Nasty Parkers with a few choice remarks, I nevertheless felt a bit embarrassed that I’d entered a universe where the clothes available were considered Goodwill leavings. I trotted off to do some shopping and picked up some groovy duds, which fortunately are pretty darn cheap in a virtual world. And yes, you do pay real money even for virtual clothing unless you have the skills to design them, which I do not. Of course you can also earn money in SL which are called Linden Bucks, but that’s a whole other discussion.

Aside from my petty grumbling, the broader implications of this are actually quite interesting. My Avatar – SuperTechnoGirl – looks like a more hard-bodied version of me, except with red hair which I always wished I had. I wasn’t aiming for anything exotic. In SuperTechnoGirl is a lot of me (Cybèle), and some of who I want to be: a tough gal with rippled abs. (Try not to laugh!). In truth, nearly everyone online is not only fabulously gorgeous, has spectacular clothing, sports killer hair, and is – of course - thin. Look around you now – how many people are like that? No, I mean really! The ones who aren’t those things usually have Avatars who are exotic animals from Mars or something of the sort. SL allows us to be anyone we want, which is fun, but also means that there are none of the limits of real life. When I look at the people I’m meeting and speaking with, I can’t help but wonder how much of their Avatar is really them (as I am Cybele) and how much is who they want to be (the abs). And also, is your fantasy self (Say if I wanted to be Tank Girl for a day) any less real than my little fantasy about being more buff? Try to figure out that little philosophical conundrum. Of course, when you think about it, we all kind of got stuck with the looks and bodies we were born with, and how we look may well have zip to do with who we are anyway. The result is that we can’t really trust anything we see or hear from another person in SL, relative to how many of us see “truth” in everyday life. It’s all a little squirrelly don’t you think?

Visual Literacy extorts us to think critically about what we see, and attend to learning about the environment in which we are moving through. It asks us to process visual images efficiently and understand the impact they have, because in places like SL, not doing so nets you a whole lotta nothing. Come to think of it, not doing so in real life nets you a whole lotta nothing as well.

Information Literacy in SL

Information Literacy asks us to identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively use the information we need. In the world of SL, this is a pretty big stipulation, because it’s not just about getting a better “Do” or a really terrific pair of boots. In navigating around, there is, for example, the simple act of moving your Avatar from one place to another, either by walking, flying, and even teleporting – my favorite method because it’s pretty much Captain Kirk’s Transporter. How do you learn to walk, fly, or teleport? Where is that information? I ask because in SL there is the website (http://secondlife.com/ ) which has all kinds of information and help, but then there’s also the actual software Second Life which is a completely separate application which you install and run when you want to travel in. Yup, it took me a while to get this one straight, and both of them offer help and advice in completely different ways.

Locating the right information and translating that to the situation at hand has not always been an easy task. Walking, flying and teleporting I got. Buying a snazzy outfit I even got, although it took a fair bit longer than browsing the real life Silhouettes online catalogue. But I still haven’t figured out why the hair I bought in SL has a big bald spot in the back, and how to fix that. The reason I can’t fix that is because the seller sent me a document on correcting the problem, but I can’t figure out how to download the document, presuming that I even have the capacity to undertake the operation – whatever it is. Oh, and then there’s the problem that I can’t reply directly to e-mails from the seller via SL. It’s so frustrating that I’ve given up until I can suck up enough caffeine one morning to cope with it. Translation: my Information Literacy for Second Life is on an exceedingly slow learning curve. I know I have the need; I have more or less identified and located the information required (about the hair), but I can’t effectively use it. As to evaluating, well that’s a place to teleport to another day entirely.

Digital Literacy in SL

Here’s the good part: I’m pretty down with Digital Literacy; which is a blessing from the CyberGods after that soap opera with the hair. If there is anything I can do, it’s “executing tasks in digital environments, such as surfing the web, deciphering user interfaces, working with databases, and chatting in chat rooms.” On the chat room side I had a few interesting experiences, mostly in that people were about as interested in me as they were in real life; meaning that they pretty much could care less. Ongoing “chats” in the various places I visited was pretty much the same as any chat room you might visit in ten thousand places on the internet: silly, flirtatious conversation that overlaps and generally makes little sense. Lots of “insider” comments which also make no sense. The only real difference is that I could see everyone standing around in cool outfits, leaning against brick walls with a James Dean attitude. Some even smoked. I wonder if they get cyber lung cancer? And as I mentioned, one hundred percent of the people in the rooms I visited were visually stunning in one way or another. If that isn’t the key to know how much is imaginary, I don’t know what is. I will say that a few (a very few) friendly souls chatted with me and sent me a variety of items, including skins (I think that’s hair or clothing or something), landscapes (places to visit) and of course lots of recommendations for clothing and hair stores.

I’ve always been proud of my ability to learn new applications fairly quickly, and I think I’m doing pretty well with SL in general. What I am reminded to do is to use my skills, not so much to struggle through the morass myself, but rather to research the internet for some training in Second Life. Note to Self: Contact the SLA group in SL for advice. After all, if my sister librarians can’t help me, who can?

Media Literacy in SL

If Media Literacy is not a stale conversation from the 1980’s, what is it? On the other hand, the definition of Media Literacy does specify “twenty-first century approach,” and my days at Temple were definitely in the old 20th century. Perhaps then it translates, for example, into the recent two-part free training sessions that the Special Libraries Association (SLA) and Click University hosted using WebEx (webcasts) and then a live session in Second Life. That’s the new millennium part of Media Literacy we can get down with. The “media” part of this literacy is the variety of ways that we have to learn now, whether it be those webcasts or live SL sessions, podcasts, video clips, online training modules, or even – gasp – old fashioned printed documents like I’m hand editing in bleeding red ink right now. How tres passé! The most important part of every tool however, is how it is matched to the need. Yes, I like to edit my own stuff on paper with red ink – just like editors did in the good old days. But no, that sure doesn’t work when you’re editing a journal with a co-editor. When I send things to my co-editor Jacqueline, it is of course always electronic.

Then as now I see resistance to these changes even in my own workplace. Colleagues want their work methods to stay the same, to stay as it was when we were typing on that nifty portable electric typewriter. They sigh when I remind them to use the Adobe Connect webcast application because “a conference call and a PowerPoint presentation would have done.” It may have done indeed – for now. But they are not seeing the big picture, which is that moving ahead with media and technological literacy is a mandate in our work (not to mention a big money saver). If we loll in the ways of conference calls and PowerPoint presentations that grew from templates we’ve all seen a thousand times – as comfy a place as that is – our competition will soar above us as in Second Life, and we will watch as our American dollars transform into Second Life Linden Bucks in the blink of an accountant’s eye. Linden Bucks may be great in SL, but they aren’t going to pay my mortgage.

Continuum or just big Amorphous Blob

So what is it all then, a Continuum or just one big Amorphous Blob? Considering how much these literacy concepts are changing, not to mention that each is defined in enough ways to confuse even the best of information professionals, I vote for Amorphous Blob. Even with that, there remains a mandate for all of us to hop on the Information Highway, or rather teleport out to Second Life – if you’d like to join me – and leave the conference call PowerPoint presentations and my portable typewriter in the closet for a rainy day. After all you never know when they might come handy (even my computer has crabby days).

I’ve been thinking lately of teleporting via Second Life back to my communications class at Temple University and chatting up that young girl who was me about all the fun stuff that’s happening these days in Media Literacy, but she probably wouldn’t believe me. After all, even the 1984 dawn of the Macintosh was still a year away. But then even SL doesn’t allow for time travel as far as I know. Still, teleporting around as in “Beam Me Up Scottie” has always been a dream of mine, so if I can’t do it here in Vermont, at least SuperTechnoGirl can do it on the Isle of Tranquility. One of my favorite experiences was when I flew over the island and spotted a water fountain with two glistening unicorns. I spent about half an hour figuring out how to hop up on one and sit down – kind of sidesaddle was the best I could do. But once I got there I have to admit, it was a beautiful place. It’s that kind of view that brings me back to Second Life. Fortunately, SuperTechnoGirl has more Information Literacy in her little finger than I ever had in my whole arm; although I’m not so sure about the hair.

References

1. "Media Literacy Definition Matrix." Leadership Summit Toolkit 2007 30 Sep 2008 <http://www.setda.org/web/guest/toolkit2007/medialiteracy/definitionmatrix>

2. Ibid

3. Ibid

4. "Visual Literacy." AT&T/UCLA Initiatives for 21st Century Literacies 06/20/2002 20 Sep 2008 http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/21stcent/visual.html

Other Resources

Second Life® is a 3-D virtual world created by its Residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by millions of Residents from around the globe. From the moment you enter the World you'll discover a vast digital continent, teeming with people, entertainment, experiences and opportunity. Once you've explored a bit, perhaps you'll find a perfect parcel of land to build your house or business. You'll also be surrounded by the Creations of your fellow Residents. Because Residents retain intellectual property rights in their digital creations, they can buy, sell and trade with other Residents. The Marketplace currently supports millions of US dollars in monthly transactions. This commerce is handled with the inworld unit of trade, the Linden™ dollar, which can be converted to US dollars at several thriving online Linden dollar exchanges.

http://secondlife.com/

SLA in Second Life Blog

Sharing learnings and initiatives around SLA in Second Life.

http://sla-divisions.typepad.com/sla_in_second_life/

Tank Girl – the Film

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Girl_(film)

Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education

These standards were reviewed by the ACRL Standards Committee and approved by the Board of Directors of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) on January 18, 2000, at the Midwinter Meeting of the American Library Association in San Antonio, Texas. These standards were also endorsed by the American Association for Higher Education (October 1999) and the Council of Independent Colleges (February 2004)

Read a full version of the standards

http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/standards/standards.pdf

The Standards Are:

1. The information literate student determines the nature and extent of the information needed.

2. The information literate student accesses needed information effectively and efficiently. Standard Three

3. The information literate student evaluates information and its sources critically and incorporates selected

4. information into his or her knowledge base and value system.

5. The information literate student, individually or as a member of a group, uses information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose.

6. The information literate student understands many of the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information and accesses and uses information ethically and legally.

Reference: http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/standards/informationliteracycompetency.cfm

Okay, Okay… I’ll move my Bookmarks to del.icio.us (grumble grumble)

I have two computers, my home desktop and my work laptop, along with several browsers: Mozilla Firefox primarily, but also AOL for my e-mail, and Safari for a few things that it runs more optimally. As you can imagine, between all of these, I have many many bookmarks, both personal and professional. Keeping them organized and not excessively duplicated between each browser is something of a task. Nevertheless, each time I switch between computers I find myself without a bookmark that I need, so I have to go back to the other computer and e-mail it to myself. Don’t’ say it, I know it’s ridiculous.

Even more ridiculous, I sometimes am on other people’s computers and find myself quite helpless without my complete list of resources. I just hate having to look them all up again in Google, and really some of them aren’t all that easy to find again. And I’m thinking that some of you might have found yourself in the same situation now and then.

As part of my explorations through the Special Libraries Association training called 23 Things, I added this blog to del.icio.us. Even though I didn’t really know what del.icio.us was or why I was doing adding anything to it. This actually had something to do with getting my blog to list automatically on the Wiki for 23 Things, but that’s still ahead of me in the learning curve. I also didn’t actually quite get why anyone would want to put their bookmarks on the internet; it seemed to me as if sharing them was just a bit of exhibitionism not unlike going on Oprah.

But then I got to thinking about all the times when I needed some particular bookmark and didn’t have it, particularly those ones that get me to places that can’t be found by searching such as our intranet timecard. If you don’t have that link, well, you just don’t have it and you’re not going to get paid. Not so good.

So this morning I decided to give del.icio.us a go. I imported all my bookmarks from two computers and how many browsers. I got a lot of junk along with my own links, but that’s to be expected I guess. It took me a couple of hours to figure out how to manage the system and set it up in a way that fit my needs; after all I’d named folders in different ways for subjects that really were the same thing so I had to merge quite a bit of stuff. But I’m all done now, and huh – this really is a very useful tool. It’s not just cool though, because del.icio.us really is just as easy to add bookmarks to as any browser, and it has the advantage of being always available anywhere – even if I were using someone else’s computer or browsing from the moon. Even better, it allows you to organize your bookmarks by tags, which are basically keywords.

Why organize with keywords instead of folders? Well, when you organize your bookmarks by folders, you not only have to remember the bookmark, but you also have to remember which folder it’s in; and of course some bookmarks fit into more than one folder. For example, I have some of my articles listed that I often refer people to, but they might also be in a folder for my website links which include those articles. With the folder system you’d have to put the bookmark in both folders, which bulks up the folders and makes for long lists of links. Using the keyword system, you simply choose the “Articles” and the “Cybele’s Websites” keywords and then later when you maybe can’t remember where you filed the bookmark, the system will find it easily for you through the quick search box. You see, folders are also available for organizing, but they’re called “tags,” which again is really another name for keywords. In other words, del.icio.us allows you to use your bookmarks either by keywords or folders, which is a big advantage in organization and speed.

Now there are some advanced options that del.icio.us offers which are useful as well. I won’t go into all of them, but a few are quite handy. The most interesting is that because del.icio.us is a website, I can share all my bookmarks with anyone, or not as I choose. Any of them can be made private of course; you wouldn’t want your checking account or health care company links to be public. So not only can I share my resources with my colleagues in the information profession, but other people with my same interests can easily find me. Del.icio.us shows how many other people have the same link on their bookmarks, and so for example I can see that my link to the Policymaker's Primer on Education Research is also linked to by one other person. Not many actually, compared to the nearly 400 people who are also interested in Wired magazine’s technology news. However, it’s pretty easy to find techie people to shop talk with, maybe not so easy to find data folk to talk over those kinds of topics. On the more fun side, over 700 other del.icio.us members also have Netflix as one of their bookmarks, so I know it’ll be easy to find fellow movie buffs if I need some recommendations. All work and no play you know.

Want to give del.icio.us a try? You can import your bookmarks and give it a whirl in just a few minutes so why not? I made del.icio.us my home page so that my browsers (all of them on both computers of course!) all open to my list automatically so that my bookmarks are always open. Easy breezy! And when you’re all up and marked, please do give mine a visit and say hi!

Here's the homepage for del.icio.us Now get going!

Fully Bookmarked,

~ Cybele

On the Cusp of the Computer Revolution; How I traversed the Divide from Ignorance to Geek Girl

I remember reading a science fiction story about how aliens landed on earth and came upon a watch, the old fashioned wind-up kind. The aliens knew from looking at this artifact that there were human beings, “humanoids” in their parlance, on this planet because the design of a watch is by definition artificially-made. I’ve often struggled with this idea that you could tell by looking at something that it was made by people or, presumably by God. After all, is not the human body surely even more complex than a timepiece? I’ve come to think that the watch was not so much more “complex” than anything in nature per se, but rather that it was structured in a kind of “digital” way, as opposed to the analogue style that human bodies are created. I realize that’s a peculiar way to describe our bodies, but I think you might know what I mean. It’s about a created formal structure versus one that developed intuitively, and in the case of human beings: in the confluence of Darwin and a Higher Power; in my opinion anyway.

So let’s go back in time a few decades from the alien landing to the early 1980’s when ATMs made their debut. My mom had to face one down for the first time and I went along to hold her hand at the scary big money machine. The nice thing about ATMs is that they are kind of idiot machines in that they tell you exactly what to do: “Press start. Press here to withdraw money. How much do you want? In tens or twenties? Thank you Mom, we appreciate your business!” Still, it was the first machine my mother ever had to deal with when it came to business, and she got through it with some aplomb once she figured out that it was really just a super big typewriter that spit out money instead of letters.

The Unplumbed Mystery of My First Computer
Fast forward a wee bit to 1984, which I’m sure you can all recall thanks to George Orwell’s book of the same name, not to mention the debut of the Macintosh. It’s the latter that interests me because one arrived in the attached garage/bedroom of my friend Lorna sometime around then, although with somewhat less fanfare than a hot mama breaking a movie screen with a giant hammer. Now you have to remember that being born in 1963, I did not grow up with computers. There were only a few in high school and they weren’t anything I was even barely aware of, and in my undergraduate work at Temple University they existed for programming classes. Oh and by the way, just so you know, I flunked out of my first programming class. But I blame that on the professor who spoke with such thick accent that I hadn’t a clue what he was saying. They didn’t have “desktop computer” classes in those olden days, only programming classes.

So there I am one day in the garage out back of my house in San Diego, California with my partner Mark and my best friend Lorna. They were, by the way, destined to get married some ten years later, but that’s another story. Don’t worry, though, it’s not sordid. We’re all sitting on stools around the tool shelf with this beige box (got that: a TV), keyboard (got that: typewriter) and a, well, something or other on a wire hooked to the back. It’s the Macintosh and none of us had the slightest idea what to do with it. See here’s the thing: a computer is not an ATM in that there are directions. That is: “Press start. Press here to withdraw money. How much do you want? In tens or twenties? Thank you Mom, we appreciate your business!” You can turn it on, sure, but what do you see? Not really anything. We were pretty stuck and the result was that the box sat around on the tool shelf for quite some time while we considered what to do with it. The problem was more than the fact that there weren’t any directions like “Press here to type a letter.” The real problem is that for us – all college educated kids I might add – there was no basis on which to hang the idea of a computer, nothing to start from. In my job we call that a conceptual framework, or rather a lack of one.

An Irrevocable Change in the Structure of My Brain (Freaky!)
Fast forward twenty-five years later and not only am I a Geek Girl myself, but you, dear reader, are probably a thousand times more educated about technology than I was in 1985. A million times really, because we knew just about NOTHING, and a million times nothing is still nothing, right? I ask you then, how did I go from nothing to Geek Girl, when other people who are my age cannot seem to make that transition? Well, I don’t quite know the answer to that question but I do know this. The first thing I learned on the Macintosh was how to draw pictures in the paint program; next came word processing; and once I realized how much better that was than typing, the rest is history.

Don’t let that “rest is history” thing pass you by too quick however. There’s a very significant event that happened in there. A little switch got pushed when I started off with that paint program, even though I could not have known it. Something changed irrevocably in the structure of my brain; there became a new way of thinking about how things work that was not there before. In other words, before that Macintosh, Mark, Lorna and I didn’t even know how to begin to think about what to do with the computer. Today you could put me in front of any kind of technological object and I may not have a clue what it is, but I would know how to get something started, even if it was the wrong something. And that is the significant difference between 1985 and now: understanding the conceptual framework of the artificial intelligence – if you will – of a computer.

There’s something else that’s key to learning about technology, something which oddly enough many users don’t seem to understand. That is that most things you learn about one application are easily applicable to other applications, not to mention other computers like PCs. That is, most software is mostly the same working parts (new file, save, etc), and computers also have the same parts (create new folder, check the sound setup, etc.). So, once you have a foundation, the rest is basically just another step of looking around the menus and finding what you want.


Uh oh, Back to the 1970’s and Computer Cards, but just for a Minute
I’m going to bounce back in time once more and talk about my dad and when I visited him at work when I was in elementary school, because I don’t want you to think I’m totally ignorant about the history of computers. We’re talking circa 1970’s and I’d go with him every weekend to his work with him at Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey. They’re the people who do the SATs of course. He was working at the time with a manual calculator – one of those giant number adding things about the size of a typewriter. But he also worked in the big computer room, typing something or other out on Fortran computer cards and printing it out on big long sheets of green and white striped computer paper several miles long. What was he doing? I haven’t the foggiest idea.

What was I doing in the computer room? Actually, I was typing out idiotic things on the Fortran cards and sometimes he even let me print them out on the green sheets. He probably would have been canned had ETS known what he was letting his foolish daughter do, but whatever (I was a wee bit spoiled). I wonder how my dad would have handled moving to the computers of today. Would the structure of his brain been able to move smoothly into desktop computers? Or would his “programming” thinking style prevented him from making that transition? Both him and my mom are in heaven now, where presumably e-mail is not necessary, so I guess we’ll never know.

If you have any thoughts on all this, please do share them with me. I’m as just about in the dark sometimes as the aliens and all I have is the digital clock on my computer. With the thunderstorm going on outside my office, I might even lose that and then where will I be?

Digitally Yours,

~ SuperTechnoGirl

Our Technology Diffusion Team

I’ve been reading an excellent book by Everett Rogers titled the Diffusion of Innovation which was recommended to me by our excellent consultant on change and technology Larry Edelman. Rogers writes about how innovations of every kind diffuse through culture and the challenges of trying to diffuse any particular innovation. One of the particular things of interest that he discusses is that a change has to include two people who move the innovation along. (I’m paraphrasing here, so my apologies to Rogers). In the case of a technology like blogs for example, one person would be the geek girl, which would be me. That person is the expert in the actual technology who gets it working, trains people, and gets it integrated into the culture. You could say that I’m doing that with this blog as I’m the first person on our staff to do a work blog.

The other person involved has more of a leadership role in that they need to be someone trusted by the staff and who can convince them to try a new technology. As you may know, if you are the techie sort, we are often dismissed because people can easily say “oh it’s just that Cybele again, she’s a tech diva and I can’t do that kind of stuff.” But if it’s one of their colleagues who is more like them in terms of experience with technology, they may feel more safe in trying something new out. So in our workplace, I ask my director to take on this role because people follow her attitude and lead when it comes to technology. It’s not that I’m not respected for my knowledge – of course I am – it’s that my knowledge seems to advanced for most people to be able to relate to.

As part of my readings on the subject, I started a Technology Diffusion Team at our workplace last year and we’ve been working toward bringing a variety of new technologies on line so that all our staff have a comfortable working knowledge. Some of these are fairly low tech actually, like using a common PowerPoint format for all presentations, and others more challenging such as getting a webcam on every laptop so that all our staff can do presentations on Adobe Connect webcasts more effectively. I’ve recently written an article on using webcams as a tool for collaboration and training because I found that most people still think of them as fun toys for chatting online, and don’t realize the many uses they have in the workplace.

Introduction and Why I've Started this Blog

Good Day Friendly Readers,

Thank you for visiting my new blog. My name is Cybele (pronounced C-Bell) and I’m a writer in the knowledge management and technology arena. I work as an information and technology specialist at a national research and development agency. I haven’t started a blog before because I have my articles as an outlet for my thoughts, but I’ve begun a new training through my professional association, the Special Libraries Association (SLA) called 23 Things that teaches us one Emerging Technology each week. Thus, the blog,

Now you and I both know that blogs are hardly an “emerging” technology, but since I’ve only read them, and not written one, I figured I’d go along and make one up myself. The idea here is not just to ramble on but to develop this product in a useful way for my work. Since I’m in the process of both developing my knowledge of emerging technologies – which is my specialty – as well as teaching others about this area, I figured this was the perfect are to muse about this topic. You see, the thing is that while blogs may not be new to me or you, they are new to many of the people that we work with, and my challenge at work is to help that group of people get up to speed on the technologies that they need to know about.

I’m a fan of author Robert Mager, who has written many books on training. One of the ideas he wrote about that has always stuck in my head is in thinking about whether a problem is a training problem or something else. I’m often challenged by help both our staff as well as our clients become technologically savvy. Sometimes it’s just a matter of teaching them what they need to know, but more often there are issue to help them overcome around fear, and more often resistance about technology in general. I’m going to explore those here as I work on them this year, as well as ask my readers for ideas and input.