Marshall_Inital Draft_DigitalLiteracyNarrative-24xh1ns
Nick Marshall
Dr. Julie Phillips Brown
ERH-221W-01
23 September 2017
Digital Literacy Narrative: Indigenously Digital
Being born in a decade where digital technology was becoming increasingly pervasive and present in the lives of Americans, tracing the beginning of my digital literacy back to a single standout moment can be difficult. For me, the process of becoming digitally literate consisted of many experiences spread across several developmental years. Outside of my very earliest memories as an infant, there are almost no points in my life that were not a part of developing my digital literacy.
I think that my early development of digital literacy was due largely to my parents’ acceptance of new technologies in the household. While I would not describe my parents as early adopters of new technologies, they always had up-to-date technological resources that I could learn from as a child. My mother pushed me at an early age to learn from digital resources. She actively purchased educational games on CDs that I could use on our computer. Using these games, I quickly got accustomed to operating our computer with a CRT monitor on a dial-up connection. I think this was critical in laying some foundational skills that still carry over to my present digital literacy. The games introduced me to a keyboard, mouse, and basic computer functions in a gamified setting.
As I moved through elementary school, many classes also began teaching using computers and gamification. English courses in particular utilized computer programs to develop literacy, spelling, and keyboarding skills. Over time, more refined software began to be introduced in the classroom to promote students’ digital literacy. Microsoft Office products became more commonplace in the classroom. I especially remember that in 6th grade, our teachers began to assign projects based primarily around these Office products. PowerPoints, documents typed in a word processor, and occasionally even Excel spreadsheets became the new norm for my educational experience. For the first time in my schooling career, a threshold of digital literacy was somewhat of an expectation and requirement.
I believe that middle school marked a pivotal point in my evolving digital literacy because of how pervasive technology became in the classroom. Technology specific classes were also emphasized to introduce students to information sciences at a young age. The class that I most specifically remember for opening new doors in my digital literacy was mandatory keyboarding class. Aside from converting my “hunt and peck” keyboarding skills to the proper “touch typing” method, I believe this class began to inspire curiosity which would eventually translate to my pursuit of technology as a career field later in life. Not only because I enjoyed these new technology-based classes but also because I excelled at them. Especially the previously mentioned keyboarding courses. Becoming a more proficient typist opened several paths that I may have missed, had I not put the time and effort in. I was expanding my digital skills, completing assignments in more efficient ways, and being introduced to new forms of problem solving. Middle school took up several hours of my day – a minimum of seven to be exact. Over the course of those three years, this additional exposure to computers and information sciences outside of my home environment, no matter how limited, most likely served to build a strong base for my understanding of the digital world.
Middle school also served as an introductory period to a less technical aspect of my digital literacy. A distinct memory that I have of 6th grade is talking to a friend in our home room period and being asked if I had visited an up-and-coming video website called YouTube. I feel like this is a noteworthy point in developing my digital literacy not only because of the personal significance it holds, but also the cultural significance. Around this age, myself and many others in my generation began to become involved in the growing world of social media and a multimedia, culturally integrated internet. With previous generations, a kid in middle school might have been teased or picked on for spending excessive amounts of time on a computer. With my generation, the opposite was true. Anyone who didn’t have some sort of digital identity was suddenly the outsider in the group. This period marked an important, permanent cultural shift that’s only grown more prevalent as time has passed and new mainstream technologies have been produced.
MySpace was one of the first social media platform that myself and my peers became familiarized with. Unlike many of my generational peers however, I largely avoided becoming involved in most social media websites. Even as MySpace faded into obscurity and Facebook became the new standard, I steered away from becoming too heavily involved in most social media. This is a habit that’s followed me into my current life and digital literacy. While I understand the appeal of platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, I typically don’t find myself wanting to immerse myself in them. The two platforms that I do use regularly are YouTube and Snapchat. One for keeping up with current events, and one for keeping up with friends. So, from both a social and academic perspective, the years I spent between 6th and 8th grade were a huge leap for my digital literacy. It laid a firm foundation for the maturation of my digital literacy which I believe happened from high school onward.
By the time I was in my freshman year of high school, I was regularly spending time on the internet, playing video games, and generally opening myself up to new technological experiences. As a part of this experiential broadening that I had unofficially tasked myself with, I tried to get myself more involved with classes that I knew would specifically help me in the future.
High school allowed me to experience my first hands-on involvement with programming languages. I enrolled in a Programming I course during my sophomore year and found myself in a small, basic computer lab on the lower level of the school. We were shown how to execute simple programming code using the Microsoft Visual BASIC language. At first, coding came naturally to me. To me, writing a line of code was as simple as writing a basic sentence in the English language. But most of all, coding didn’t seem like a chore like my other assignments in school. Creating and sculpting programs on a computer seemed fun and I almost couldn’t believe that people were paid exorbitant amounts of money to be good at it. As the semester progressed and we moved on to more complex, intricate projects, my natural ability to nonchalantly pump out programming code slowed down. Nothing about this was negative, however. It forced me to study on my own time and become even more familiar with programming languages.
Next year, I made the conscious decision to enroll at the Virginia Military Institute as a Computer and Information Sciences major. Without the various pushes throughout my life to inch my way toward this field, I’m not sure if I would have chosen the profession. But now I am wholly dedicated to it. By choosing this field, I’ve committed myself to lifelong learning and constantly changing experiences as technology advances. College graduation on May 16th, 2018 will not be the end of my digital learning. It simply marks another opportunity to become more digitally literate in a changing digitized world.