This blog will document the “haps” and “mishaps” of a digital learner. During the past few weeks, I have learned:

1. When purchasing tablets as gifts for children, do not register under your own e-mail… particularly if the tablets use the same operating system as your phone and will helpfully sync all of your content to your children’s devices.  Spurred comprehension: making said discovery on Christmas morning.

2. When technicians install a huge interactive panel at work, stop cheering momentarily and beg for training, if only a 5-minute quick tip tutorial.  Spurred comprehension: bumping a button on the remote 10 minutes after the technicians leave, causing a recurring error message that drowns your cheers.

3. Before you allow your children to use your personal laptop for homework, school them in the ugly art of malware and its derivatives.  Spurred comprehension:  Oops!  You have ransomware on your computer and a prompt appears at each startup, directing you to the “help” you need.  Even if you know well enough not to pay, this will eat up hours of your life and your computer may never be the same.

4. Google Hangouts are limited to 10 users.  Spurred comprehension: Log in 5 minutes before the hangout and find that it’s already full.  Click the “While you’re waiting” options and play. Attempt to use the YouTube tool without fully (or even partially)  understanding why it’s there. Start a Hangout of your own but invite no one. Go ahead, use the enhancement tool and give yourself that crown you’ve always wanted.

5. Just because Twitter has been around for a while doesn’t mean everyone knows how to use it. Spurred learning: Join a digital literacy class and attempt to tweet on the fly when your professor requests it.  Yeah, it’s funny to see the tweet with only a hashtag and no content, isn’t it?  You know that one was mine because I spelled out hashtag.  Then, I liked your post so much I tweeted it.  That’s right, I said “Tweet” not “Retweet” and isn’t that some sort of tweet faux pas?

Until next time, color me digitally napping.