Viewing My Teaching

I teach computers. That's what I tell people I do for a living. In the past I've defined myself as a trainer, because that's what job descriptions called what I do. Years ago I took career counseling and one of the main recommendations was that I teach people to do their jobs. Twenty five years later, that's what I do. I think I do it well, although I always question my abilities after a difficult class (don't we all?). Now my sense of self sees a teacher. I thought I taught computer literacy, but Coiro points out that the digital literacy is so much more. In interviewing supervisors and managers, digital literacy was being able 'to tell a story with the software'. I actually heard that twice, in reference to Microsoft Excel. He writes, "Reading purposefully to solve problems using the Internet also means knowing what to pay attention to while being aware of the increasing range of digital techniques . . ." So now I can't even say someone is computer literate if they can work on the computer - they have to be able to understand how to use the computer to learn.

I teach Introduction to Computers and the Internet. I think everyone would be surprised at how difficult it is to teach someone what the internet is. For adults, it's teaching them that they can go somewhere that doesn't exist, get something that doesn't exist, and move it to somewhere that doesn't exist.

And for the record, I spelled reassurance incorrectly on a previous post. I know it's nothing, but it's been bothering me. My bad.


Joyce M.