I’m a 40+ digital mom who thought she was keeping up with technology, but found out that this sibling ran ahead while I blinked.

Some days, technology is my sister. Other days, technology is the 17 year old athlete who leaves middle aged moms in the dust.

Hey, at least technology keeps me moving forward, learning & growing.

Thanks for asking!

So though I’m in the forty something vs. thirty something realm, we are digital ‘sisters’ in spirit to use the power of this amazing media for positive social change.

I’m by no means a digital native, but am clearly a digital champion, eager to fulfill on the promise and hope of this bold new technology to do positive things…(yes, I DO remember the carriage return sound well, AND the longhand journals and ‘sealing wax’ teen days when I could still be legible with a pen—no more, the keyboard has become my literal digital extension w/flying fingers as you can see in this handwriting/digital demise post that echoes danah boyd’s http://www.shapingyouth.org/blog/?p=928

But even though some of the kids that advise us for Shaping Youth are ‘digital natives’ they don’t necessarily fit into that ‘early adopter’ moniker that gets tossed around as a given…In fact, some of these kids could care less about technology, even though they’re using media as a conduit for social engagement…

So…WHO is technology to me?

Hmn…generationally, clearly I’m an ‘immigrant’ which fits me, since I was raised as a global citizen morphing from culture to culture learning about this small blue marble of a planet and what my role was destined to be within it…so perhaps that metaphor extends further…

Technology to me is like being a ‘stranger in a strange land’…exciting and thrilling while a tad uncomfy and edgy never knowing what’s to come…

Like exotic travel, it requires full immersion into the culture in order to understand beyond the superficial offerings of being a ‘tourist’ and remaining on the paved trail.

So I guess I’m an ‘ex-pat’ of sorts, blending and morphing into multiple social media environs and virtual worlds, never fully ‘fitting in’ but embracing the nuances as experiential pleasures. Living digital with a twist…so to speak.

Thrilled to find your blog…Keep up the great work!

I, however, had the fortunate circumstance that my mother was a secretary and even though I was a college-prep math/science student typing just seemed something you learned. I took it, by my own choice, as an elective in high school at 14. We were graded on typing speed so naturally as a straight A student I learned to type fast! To this day it amazes me that the computer class requirement, which came into being about 2 years behind my curriculum when my brother hit high school, never included keyboard skills. Or that kids now don’t learn touch typing either. Even when I headed off to university in ’88 all papers were required to be submitted typed (this was the University of Illinois) despite typing not being a skill the vast majority of university freshmen had ever learned.