![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ENG 302 – Technical Writing
Technological Literacy Profile
Kevyn “Hagrid” Jacobs
2007.04.03
Answer each of the following questions in detail.
1. Write or draw an autobiography in which you recall your earliest experiences with technological devices. What were they? What do you remember about using them?
My earliest memories of experiences with technology clearly involve the visual mass communication mediums. I was raised on television & movies. I was born the year after Sesame Street premiered on PBS, and Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch and Cookie Monster were often my babysitters while my mother was busy.
One of my earliest memories of the movies was when I was around 2 or 3 years old, and my parents went to the local drive-in to see “The Andromeda Strain,” with me in the back seat. While the strange images of spacesuit-like biological isolation units were fascinating, I soon grew bored, and climbed on to the top of the back seat to watch something even more compelling: silent images projected on the screen at the drive-in next door. There, “2001” was being shown, and I vividly remember when the Star Child image appeared on the giant screen.
I was terrified. I couldn’t hear the movie’s soundtrack, and hadn’t been watching it all along, so I had no idea what was going on, no context in which to put it. But the image of a fully awake star child floating in black space rocked a 3-year-old’s consciousness enough to lay down a lasting memory. I remember trying to express to my parents (who were naturally paying attention to the movie they had paid to see, not the one next door) what it was I had seen, and how it had shaken me, but I didn’t have the words. “The baby, the baby” was all I could say.
Movies and television, the technology of moving images, have shaped my consciousness like no other. Even when I learned to read, and became a voracious reader, moving pictures still held sway over me… and still do to this day.
2. What were the popular gadgets in your house while you were growing up?
The gadgets I remember were the toys, the ones that had mechanical and electronic aspects to them. Operation, with it’s buzzing nose. The Star Trek phaser model. The Bionic Woman play set, with the tubes and cables you could plug into the doll’s arms and legs. Many of my toys were merchandising of Science Fiction programs, which I developed a very early taste for. And I was 9 years old when Star Wars came out – you can imagine the impact that movie had on my life at that age.
Most of my toys didn’t work for long, however. I would invariably end up disassembling them, trying to figure out how they worked, what made them tick – and I was rarely able to re-assemble them afterwards. But that’s OK, because I was able to repurpose the working parts into other toys, going where my imagination took me.
I was also a very early adopter of computer technology. My family purchased our first TV video game console – an Odyssey, I believe – sometime around 1978. In cub scouts, in 1979, I was introduced to Personal Computers for the first time. By the beginning of the 80s, we had a Timex-Sinclair, and later a TRS Color Computer. I bought my first Apple computer in 1984, and have been an Apple user ever since. My mother recognized my interest in computers very early, and seeing which way the world was going, encouraged this interest, always ensuring that I had access to digital technology.
3. Who do you identify as being the most technologically “Literate” in
your life?
Among my friends and family, I am the one people consider to be the most technologically literate. I am the one people go to for tech answers. I have become very proficient at translating Geek-to-English because of this.
4. What’s on your desk at home?
A G5 iMac. A S.A.D. light box. A scanner/printer/copier combo. A tea mug. A cable modem. And a stack of papers waiting to be scanned and shredded.
5. What technological devices are you carrying at the moment?
A cell phone. A cigarette lighter. A shirt with a zipper. Clothes made of synthetic fabric. Manufactured shoes. Keys. A wallet made of tooled leather, with metal snaps. Currency. Credit, identity and phone cards with magnetic strips and microchips in them. Printed business cards. Teeth fillings. And most importantly: a ball-point pen.
6. What’s on your technological wish list?
A portable, wireless, heads-up visual computer interface that I can access while walking. I want to be able to access and interface with the Internet while in the woods.
7. How do you expect to learn and keep up with new technologies in the future?
I learn by doing. Playing with new technologies when I can access them. I read technology blogs, to find out what is new and interesting coming out. BoingBoing.net is great for this. And I religiously watch every video that the TED conference puts out.
8. What sort of documentation (information about the technology) works best for you?
Videos actually work better for me than reading. I am a visual/kinesthetic/imitative learner. Show me how to do something, and I will imitate, and learn in the process.
9. What, if anything, worries you about technology in your life?
I tend to isolate in my room, sitting in front of my "glowing box," as one of my ex-boyfriends put it. (It was the same in my pre-Internet bookish days – the technology changed, but not the behaviour.) I don't get enough exercise as a result, which is why I would love an Internet interface that goes with me.
10. What technology do you feel you could live without? Why?
Food technology. The blessing and curse of my life is that I live in the most calorie-rich culture in human history. I am programmed by my ancestors to eat, and eat a lot -- and in a culture where food technology has increased calorie/fat content, this is a problem.
Technological Literacy Profile
Kevyn “Hagrid” Jacobs
2007.04.03
Answer each of the following questions in detail.
1. Write or draw an autobiography in which you recall your earliest experiences with technological devices. What were they? What do you remember about using them?
My earliest memories of experiences with technology clearly involve the visual mass communication mediums. I was raised on television & movies. I was born the year after Sesame Street premiered on PBS, and Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch and Cookie Monster were often my babysitters while my mother was busy.
One of my earliest memories of the movies was when I was around 2 or 3 years old, and my parents went to the local drive-in to see “The Andromeda Strain,” with me in the back seat. While the strange images of spacesuit-like biological isolation units were fascinating, I soon grew bored, and climbed on to the top of the back seat to watch something even more compelling: silent images projected on the screen at the drive-in next door. There, “2001” was being shown, and I vividly remember when the Star Child image appeared on the giant screen.
I was terrified. I couldn’t hear the movie’s soundtrack, and hadn’t been watching it all along, so I had no idea what was going on, no context in which to put it. But the image of a fully awake star child floating in black space rocked a 3-year-old’s consciousness enough to lay down a lasting memory. I remember trying to express to my parents (who were naturally paying attention to the movie they had paid to see, not the one next door) what it was I had seen, and how it had shaken me, but I didn’t have the words. “The baby, the baby” was all I could say.
Movies and television, the technology of moving images, have shaped my consciousness like no other. Even when I learned to read, and became a voracious reader, moving pictures still held sway over me… and still do to this day.
2. What were the popular gadgets in your house while you were growing up?
The gadgets I remember were the toys, the ones that had mechanical and electronic aspects to them. Operation, with it’s buzzing nose. The Star Trek phaser model. The Bionic Woman play set, with the tubes and cables you could plug into the doll’s arms and legs. Many of my toys were merchandising of Science Fiction programs, which I developed a very early taste for. And I was 9 years old when Star Wars came out – you can imagine the impact that movie had on my life at that age.
Most of my toys didn’t work for long, however. I would invariably end up disassembling them, trying to figure out how they worked, what made them tick – and I was rarely able to re-assemble them afterwards. But that’s OK, because I was able to repurpose the working parts into other toys, going where my imagination took me.
I was also a very early adopter of computer technology. My family purchased our first TV video game console – an Odyssey, I believe – sometime around 1978. In cub scouts, in 1979, I was introduced to Personal Computers for the first time. By the beginning of the 80s, we had a Timex-Sinclair, and later a TRS Color Computer. I bought my first Apple computer in 1984, and have been an Apple user ever since. My mother recognized my interest in computers very early, and seeing which way the world was going, encouraged this interest, always ensuring that I had access to digital technology.
3. Who do you identify as being the most technologically “Literate” in
your life?
Among my friends and family, I am the one people consider to be the most technologically literate. I am the one people go to for tech answers. I have become very proficient at translating Geek-to-English because of this.
4. What’s on your desk at home?
A G5 iMac. A S.A.D. light box. A scanner/printer/copier combo. A tea mug. A cable modem. And a stack of papers waiting to be scanned and shredded.
5. What technological devices are you carrying at the moment?
A cell phone. A cigarette lighter. A shirt with a zipper. Clothes made of synthetic fabric. Manufactured shoes. Keys. A wallet made of tooled leather, with metal snaps. Currency. Credit, identity and phone cards with magnetic strips and microchips in them. Printed business cards. Teeth fillings. And most importantly: a ball-point pen.
6. What’s on your technological wish list?
A portable, wireless, heads-up visual computer interface that I can access while walking. I want to be able to access and interface with the Internet while in the woods.
7. How do you expect to learn and keep up with new technologies in the future?
I learn by doing. Playing with new technologies when I can access them. I read technology blogs, to find out what is new and interesting coming out. BoingBoing.net is great for this. And I religiously watch every video that the TED conference puts out.
8. What sort of documentation (information about the technology) works best for you?
Videos actually work better for me than reading. I am a visual/kinesthetic/imitative learner. Show me how to do something, and I will imitate, and learn in the process.
9. What, if anything, worries you about technology in your life?
I tend to isolate in my room, sitting in front of my "glowing box," as one of my ex-boyfriends put it. (It was the same in my pre-Internet bookish days – the technology changed, but not the behaviour.) I don't get enough exercise as a result, which is why I would love an Internet interface that goes with me.
10. What technology do you feel you could live without? Why?
Food technology. The blessing and curse of my life is that I live in the most calorie-rich culture in human history. I am programmed by my ancestors to eat, and eat a lot -- and in a culture where food technology has increased calorie/fat content, this is a problem.
Tags: