I find myself drawn to some technologies and repelled by others. I prefer blackboard over webct, and endnote over refworks. I favor the PC over the Mac, and Stata over SPSS. Is it familiarity that makes us drawn to some and not others? Obviously, our experiences with specific technologies create these preferences. But, the choices of the people around us also contribute to the technologies and innovations we choose. I used to be an avid SPSS user, until I met my advisor, Linda. She prefers Stata and introduced me to the program. I was dragging my feet at first because it was so new, but she managed to woo me over rather quickly.
Of all the technologies I have mentioned, I have used and learned the basics of both, but still have firm preferences. I find myself trying to woo people over to my technology preferences as well. For instance, in class last week I started a sales pitch to poor Jacquelyn about the joys and ease of Endnote. I find this particular technology to be helpful, a time saver, and one of the easiest technologies to use... but I am a PC user... and apparently things change on a Mac and I don't speak Mac Talk. I told Jacquely, "Oh, you have to learn endnote before you take comps! It will save you hours of time!!" and I do believe that it will. But learning the program takes time too, and that is frustrating because if someone tells you "this will be a time saver" then you think to yourself, "Why am I losing so much time trying to figure this crazy thing out? My current system works" And dear Jacquelyn.. I think that's where she was....thinking to herself, "Crazy Maria thinks she's making my life easier... but I hate technology!" and I'm sorry for dragging her through that. I have hope though, because our other team member (Christen) walks the line between PC and Macs and can set the record straight as a Mac Endnote user.
This brings me to my actual thought worth any substance: at one point is it too much of a time waster to learn a new product that will "save" us in the future? Is it worth it for all students to learn Endnote? Is it worth it only for grad students? Only those in some fields? I guess my question is, since we can't all spend our time learning and explorting new technologies, how do we know where to devote our time and energy? I won't have Sherry Clouser telling me about the latest and greatest technologies once a week and keeping me up to date and aware of the important and relevant technologies for my life. What will I do then?!?!?!?
How will I make choices and decisions about selecting a technology to explore? Should we set up communities to divide and conquer? By doing this, we can share our knowledge and reduce the time we waste learning new technologies to make our lives easier. Such a paradox.
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First things first- EndNote and Stata are both amazing (as are macs) :-)
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I totally agree with you on the time-saver time-waster issue. It is so hard to know what we should be spending our time learning and working on. Things like EndNote have a clear purpose to me, but what about technologies for the classroom? Wouldn't it be easier to just stick with what I have going?
I guess the one saving grace of the whole thing is that as you learn one technology it does make understanding the others easier. For example, if I had not learned how to write code in other places, understanding how Stata works would have been a lot harder (not that I am a Stata master by any stretch of the imagination). And, I think I could now do RefWorks pretty easily if I ever needed to. So I guess we can at least say that any time we put in to learning technology can save us time in the future in ways we can't even guess right now. Is that a good enough justification?
I like your sentiments. And I agree that it gets easier as you learn more. Although Stata was a first for me - I had never written code prior to meeting Stata. But, then I find myself grousing about the benefits of one program over another. I'm using refworks for a paper with an old advisor and it's such a pain because the features aren't as good as endnote. Thus, I become a swearing sailor when trying to incorporate refworks into my life. Although knowing endnote did in fact make it easier.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes.... I do think sticking with what you have going is sometimes a good idea. Whatever happened to, "don't fix it if it ain't broke"
You are on the right track with the community idea - when you get where you're going, find out who is "in the know" with regard to teaching with technology. Make friends with those folks! They may be faculty development professionals, or they may be the early adopters who work on the kinks and identify the best features of new technologies. Then, they usually like to share what they've learned.
ReplyDeleteAnother great way to learn what works is to follow a few blogs, or even Twitter. Just remember that other instructors may not have the same teaching perspectives, preferences, styles, and goals that you have. What works for them may not be the best option for your classroom.