Prewriting Questions

Question: What early experiences with technological devices or artifacts can you recall? What do you remember about your earliest use of technologies? Or what stories do your parents tell about your interactions with technology? What were the popular gadgets in your house while growing up?

Answer: When I was younger my family did not have many technological devices in the house. Of course there was a television and computer. However the computer came with slow dial-up, which is horrible compared to modern wireless. Along with the television came a VCR. In today’s world I do not think VCR’s are made any more. Now it is about DVD players instead. As a child I remember thinking I was the coolest kid on the block, because I owned a CD player. However today you do not see many people walking around with those, because they have been replaced with the IPODS.

Question: How do you learn new technologies? What process do you go through? Is it hard, fun, easy, traumatic, boring, annoying, or some combination?

Answer: New and different technologies are fun for me to work with. I am the person that jumps right in and likes to mess around with whatever it is and learn by experience, rather than looking at instructions. However this way of doing things can become very frustrating, because things are never done right the first time. It does not matter if it is done right the first time for me, because I like to have fun with new technology.

Question: Think of a time when you first encountered a specific technology. What happened, and how did it affect you?

Answer: One new technology that I think is cool would be the Iphone. This little device is amazing it has so many different options on it including phone service, games, music, Internet and many more fun things. However the Iphones are extremely small for giving so many services. It just blows my mind that Iphones are so far technology advanced. These small devices are fun to work with, although one thing that bugs me is using the Internet on this device. It drives me crazy that I cannot see the whole page due to the fact the screen is so small. Other than this small detail the Iphones are amazing.

Question: Think specifically of computer technology. Try to remember a specific computer technology that excited or angered you. Why did this technology have this specific impact on you?

Answer: Through high school and work experiences I have had the opportunity of working with many different technologies especially on the computer. In my high school graphics class I worked with Photoshop and Indesign along with all the other Adobe products. These work with many different graphic techniques and I loved it. At times these applications can be hard to work with and make people frustrated, but I enjoy working with graphics and I am glad I know how to use these different applications, because they are essential to graphic design and photo editing.

Question: Think about computers and communication. For instance, have you had a particular experience with emailing when things went better or worse than they might have if the communication had been face to face? What happened, and why do you think this communication worked better or worse than it would have had you been talking face to face?

Answer: There have been many times when I have emailed my uncle. The problem with this is he looks at the text and takes it offensively. One time I accidentally had the CAPS lock on and I wrote my email with it still one. When he received my email he wrote back and took offense to it because people had told him if you write in Capital letters it means you are yelling at them. SO I had to take extra time to explain to him that I was not mad and it was just a small typing error. If this conversation would have been face to face he would have not been offended simply because I was never even mad it was the way of typing that caught him off guard.