Part I of Core 1

I think of myself as a pretty tech savvy person. I'm not a computer programmer but I can do quite a lot with a computer. In high school I took a few computer classes. One was a class on office and a little bit of photoshop. The second class that I took was a interactive design class. In that class we learned how to use InDesign, Illustrator, and photoshop. Here at UCF I took the engineering 1 class fall 2009 and in the lab portion for that class we learned how to use Auto CAD and Solid Works. These two programs are drafting and 3-D Design programs that engineers use in their professions today.
There are a few thing I would really like to learn. One of them is auto diagnostics and tuning. I love working on cars but I can only do regular work that doesn't involve anything electrical. The problem with that is that so many cars now a days are so computer based that nothing even works with out a computer telling it to do something. The second thing I would like to learn is web design. Since in the future I want to have my own performance car shop it would really be a help to be able to set up and maintain my own web site.

Connecting the Digital Dots: Literacy of the 21st Century

The purpose of this article is to talk about the changes in literacy over the years and how digital literacy is affecting learning. Children in school are said to have a very high digital literacy. They are taught this the same way they learn language, it just happens to them. The problem is that they are being taught by professors and teachers who are of an older generation and who are not digitally literate. Technology is a great tool for learning. "No longer is it enough for a teacher to talk about another country and point to a given city while holding up a map." It may seem like technology is the answer to our educational problems but the truth is, even if schools try to implement more digital technology, the technology will not be as affective as it can be. This is something that is usually over looked by schools. Not only do they need the technology, but they also need the training for their employees to be able to effectively manage the equipment.

This article is directed towards the schools and school boards across the country. If they see the flaws with their approach to digital literacy then they can easily be fixed. This will result in better and more efficient education.

Literacy education for the 21st century

http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=7208