Lia Dunn assessed her technological literacy skills through various communication tools used in her Introduction to Writing Arts course. She showed improvement using Twitter, learning that tweeting is more like an AIM conversation than a Facebook status. On Tumblr, she learned blogging is more flexible than formal writing and can be short or long. Jing and Wordle were useful tools for class projects, allowing her to add pictures and find keywords. While struggling at times with collaboration issues, Google Docs allowed group work from multiple devices. Through these resources, Lia feels she has become more technology literate.

1. Lia Dunn’s Self Assessment Professor Teston Introduction to Writing Arts

2. Technologically Literate According to David Richard Moore “ to be literate in technology requires one to hold more than a mere utilitarian perspective on technology. It is often not sufficient to know how to use technology in specific instances. Enough needs to be known so that the individual can operate in a dynamic, systemic and techno-centric environment (2010).”

3. Achieving Technological Literacy I will show through various communication sites that I have improved my technological literacy through this course. I will do this by showing my improved knowledge using Twitter, Tumblr, Jing, Wordle, and Google Docs.

4. Twitter I was completely confused when we made our Twitter accounts. I have never used this social network site before this class. I was clueless on how to “tweet.”

5. Twitter Cont. As we started using Twitter in class more and the concept was explained to me I started to understand “tweeting”. Contrary to what I originally thought “tweeting” is not like a Facebook status, but more of a conversation such as AIM. Just putting a hyperlink is tweeting.

6. Tumblr Learning about blogging on Tumblr was a whole different type of writing for me. I have been so used to writing essays and assignments, that blogging seemed like an odd concept for me. I only used it once last semester for a project and still never understood it. However, after this module, I now know that blogging is not writing a paper length response, rather can be as short or long as I need it to be to make my point.

7. Tumblr Cont. Blogging on Tumblr consisted of writing quotes and posting pictures. It is meant to be a form of writing to express your thoughts without having to use formal writing. This was a nice change of pace compared to the other modules for the course.

8. Jing This is by far one of the most useful tools a college student can have. Not only was it a free download, but it has helped me with my projects for this class. I used Jing to put all the pictures on this power point. In my group white paper we also used Jing. I was weary of downloading something I was not informed about but I’m glad I made the decision to go through with it. I plan on using Jing for future assignments and classes.

9. Wordle Wordle along with Jing was something that was new to me. It is another program I plan to use in future classes. My group used this in our white paper and I couldn’t believe how easy it was to use. The simple copy and paste into Wordle made finding the key words simple for the paper. I am glad we learned how to use this in class.

10. Google Docs I have used Google Docs in a previous class and was a little unnerved to be using it again. My experience with it was not a good one, but I had hoped it was only because it was my first time using it. Unfortunately, I am still Anti-Google Docs. My group used Google Docs for our white paper and it was a nightmare. If more than one of us was on the document at the same time it worked extremely slow. Words appeared twice or misspelled because of the slow processing.

11. Google Docs Cont. I did learn more about using Google Docs this time around such as certain combination buttons on the keyboard allowing me to copy, paste, or cut. I also learned how to search for a certain word throughout the entire document and then change it. While there were struggles using it, Google Docs allowed us to work collaboratively on the project from multiple laptops at the same time. I would prefer not to use it again, but if I had to, I believe I learned more about it this time.

12. Accomplished Through several different resources and programs I have become technology literate through this course. I learned how to use new programs, which will continue to aide me in my education and also added information to prior knowledge of some of these resources. These have been informative programs that I plan to continue using in the future.

13. Reference Moore, D.(2010 January 23). Technology Literacy: the Extension of Cognition. Springer Science and Business Media.