Last month I attended “Geek Day” at Leeward Community College and found there an interesting mix of people who are trying, like myself, to stay up-to-date in a changing digital environment.
Although not strictly a “meet up” for online users who might not otherwise see each other face-to-face, the day-long event was a good chance to meet new people and exchange ideas. Primarily, though, the event was set up to be a series of mini-talks and workshops that introduce people in the audience to new tools, software and apps.
One thing I found as I struggle to stay up to date on these developments (or at least just a few steps behind many of my students) is that there’s no substitute for hands-on learning in this field. I can watch all the Youtube videos, read all the FAQs, go online for help – but I still find that I learn best when I have someone sitting there in person to answer my questions and walk me through my mistakes. This is not the way learning is going, of course; most people can find their way through the maze of new digital tools on their own, or know how to use the available online tools.
So I thought that Geek Day was a good mix of the two. Most of the workshops that I attended involved a mix of hands-on learning and recommendations on where to find more information once we left the classroom. For instance, in one session one Adobe Illustrator, we worked through the process of creating a still life picture – with the help of a few prearranged shortcuts from the instructor and the help of an assistant who roamed the room looking for people who were falling behind on the process. It worked: In 50 minutes I was able to put together a pretty nice portrait of an apple, cheese and knife on a kitchen table.
That’s something that probably would have taken days for me to accomplish on my own with the help of a Dummies book and a lot of online browsing. But I haven’t gone back to Illustrator since that day and have probably forgot everything I learned. Reinforcement is key for many of the more complex softwares. What was really nice in the classroom though was the sense that all the other participants were as equally awed and frustrated at the same time as I was, at least to varying degrees. We shared a learning curve that we wouldn’t have had if we were all struggling on our own or even in an online classroom situation. I could look around the room and see people getting it faster than I did, and I could see people who were way more lost than me.
Between sessions and at lunch, there was time to meet some new people, (and even some people from our online class). and again I could see the wide range of tech expertise that different levels the event had brought to the event.
I’ve enjoyed taking my first online class, and found that I learned quite a bit from it, at least when I was able to apply myself as much as I wanted. But the face-to-face factor is going to remain important to me as I go on as a student, teacher, and part of the digital community.
