Sue Waters

This post is dedicated to all the lecturers who come to my professional development sessions and workshops:

• who feel like giving up because they think they are never going to get how to do it
• who place me on a pedestal as being some one knows all about technology and does not struggle with using technology

To remind them that:

• Using technology is a learning journey that takes time (don’t be hard on yourselves we are all learners)
• The more you practise skills you learn in PD outside of workshop sessions, the better you will get.
• Make your goal to go away from a PD session and actually practise the skills you were shown. BUT BE PATIENT, but don’t give up. If you do get stuck try working out the solution for yourself; but don’t stress if you can’t (even I get stuck). (Hint write notes of what you have tried to do and where you have got stuck so I can help you)
• Nothing you struggle with, or do, I will I ever perceive as them being dumb – guaranteed I have made the same mistake myself.

So the following is information to make them laugh, realise that we all need help from our friends, and if I can do it, they can do it.

Here is the story of me, Sue Waters, and some of my most famous bloopers in my technology journey!

I frequently get people wondering and asking me questions of why I have a skype callout that has the words “System 32” in it. While I will not say what my original message about System 32 was I will say is I use this message as a reminder to me. To remember that while I can do a lot on a computer I really am just a beginner; every now and then I get reminded of this fact. My friend (a programmer) always says the problem with me is that I think I know more than I do which is why I stuff things up. It is always good to have friends to humble you. (PS that friend, who is retired, no he is not old just did very well working as programmer, recently asked me when he was drink if I would give him lessons on Web 2.0 technology 🙂 )

I am one of those people that is totally self taught and can do more than most but will come unstuck with the simple things. Like the time, many years ago, when my computer would not start properly. So I rang my IT friend at work. He navigated me to the section so I could check my memory and then asked me to read out the numbers. So I said it says “OK, OK, OK.” He said what! Read it again but this time with the words as well so I said that free memory space says OK…..He laughs loudly “No Sue that mean zero K’s, zero K’s, zero K’s which is definitely not okay it means that you are f….d and there is no memory left”.

Then there was the time I bought a new computer and could not work out why the number pad did not work……the guy who built had a great time laughing about the fact I did not know to put on the number lock.

And finally getting back to system 32. Towards the end of last year I bought myself a new computer. It kept crashing Internet Explorer every time I tried to run WebCT 6.0. Finally after weeks we decided that maybe there was a virus on my computer causing problems. So I removed the cheap virus software that the computer shop told me was brilliant and installed Norton’s. Straight away it picked up that I had several trojan on my computer. However I could not get rid of them using Norton’s, spybot or Win Defender. So I ended up with Norton’s popping up every ten minutes saying it had deleted this Trojan. When I discussed it with my friend and we did all the things that I had to do to remove it and it was not working I told my friend that the easiest thing to do to remove it was to remove that bloody System 32 where it resides. He burst out laughing and told me that System 32 is my Windows operating system – which is not a good idea. Humbled yet again!

Final reason for putting System 32 in my Skype callout; I hate being called a geek, techno-freak or nerd (as I am not). And those that think I am a will start arguing with me saying I must be as I know what System 32 is. Please note to all that know me, and those that I network with, I adamantly denied being a techno-freak, nerd or geek. Although my skills level absolutely freaks out one of my techno-freak friends.