Final Vision Project & Reflection: I Am A Champion, My Friends!!!! At a FAIL, anyway :)

I did it!!!! I won’t say that I did it well, but I did it!! I made an infographic! I really love the fact that I have gone from someone who was so scared of technology, to finding a tool that I connected with, and I now want to learn how to create it and share with others!  I have not only turned a corner in my learning, I have sprinted up a few blocks!!! I am not naive enough to think that I don’t have miles to go in my learning, but I don’t have as much fear and shame about where I am, or where I was at, in terms of my comfort level and knowledge of technology.  I won’t have any one observing that I’m a Luddite anytime soon!!! 

Now, I know your eye will probably scan down to see my infographic, but just wait, look back up here, I have some things to say first!  I have been as transparent in this class and with these blog posts as I am in my offline life, and part of me was worried that I was being too open/personal, and not professional enough, especially because I have never done something like a blog before, which is so open...to everyone...everywhere.  Then I perused some other blogs, and I got the impression that they were a venue to be open and personal about a subject matter that meant something to them.  So I stuck with the way that I was sharing on my blog, and I think by doing so, anyone who reads this series of blogs can really appreciate how far I have come in how I view technology, and even that the tone that I use when speaking about it has changed. 

I re-read my first blog post and I can’t help but laugh at myself and what I wrote; I sounded self-righteous and indignant at the “evil” invasion of technology.  Aaron, you were so generous with your comments, positive, AND tactful in not mentioning how absolutely negative I was about venturing into an area that I was really uncomfortable exploring.  I won’t say that I am fully embracing technology (I’m currently looking for two refurbished antique typewriters, one for me and one for my daughter...she loves them all on her own!! I have only taken her to the antiques stores, and she is drawn to them like a moth to a flame!), but I am more open to it, and willing to introduce it into other areas of my life, which is a HUGE change in my point of view! 

This journey of discovery has been scary, humbling, frustrating, informative, and, I can honestly say, fun!  I have actually made a few connections with people in my life who, in my opinion, have an unnaturally close, personal relationship with technology, but as they were well aware of my feelings towards technology, had never really brought it up in conversation.  I didn’t realize that I was preventing potential conversations from happening, just because I was so open about my feelings towards technology.  This definitely inspired me to examine other opinions that I might be a little too vocal about, that are possibly preventing other conversations, or connections, to be made.     So becoming self-aware about what I’m putting out there, which in turn, affects what I am getting back, is just another positive outcome of this class.

I can’t say that I am a Digital Native, but I’m not going to avoid becoming one anymore.  I am on the path that will lead me far, far away from being a Digital Immigrant, and I am proud of that, and I will now happily skip down that path instead of putting up road blocks that have been preventing me from venturing outside of my luddite-loving bunker, and seeing the good things that can come from taking the path less travelled (well, previously less travelled by me anyway).  Part of this skipping so happily along is largely due to the wonderful discovery of infographics, which I have been so vocal about for the last few blogs.  I am astounded that I am only discovering them now, when they have actually been around for quite some time, but I will blame the luddite-loving bunker on that one (shhhh...I know I’m the one that put myself in there, but we’re going to ignore that right now because I have made such monumental changes...okay, not monumental, but still big enough that we can ignore the whole self-imposed bunker aspect).

So now we get to the “professional” part of the blog, or “professional-ish” anyway, where I expound on the infographic Final Vision Project! This is exciting! But still no peeking!! Eyes up here for now! We’re almost there!  In all of my infographic researching, I really wasn’t sure that I was going to be able to pull it off.  Aaron, my teacher (for those of you who don’t know), gave me an out, and said that I could use clipart in a word document, but I was determined (have I mentioned that I may lean towards a wee bit of a stubborn streak?) to do an infographic, no matter how it turned out, and I did!  It isn’t what I would be excited to share, in terms of being on the same level as other infographics that delight me to no end with their visual and information provocation, but the process of creating one made me appreciate all infographics (even the not so interesting ones) all the more. 

I now know the difficulties of building something from the blank screen out: trying to display key points of information in a way that is pleasing to the eye, and not overwhelming; picking a color scheme that draws the eye, rather than repels it (although I’m not too sure how I fared there, but it is my first attempt!!!); choosing graphics that complement the text; and finally, knowing when to stop!  This last one was really important for me because I was trying to make my first attempt at making an infographic look like the ones that I find all over the net, but I had to take a deep breath, step back, and really look at what I had done.  I have created something that I had never even heard of 3 months ago, using tools that I had never had experience using prior to 4 days ago, and I am determined to continue creating infographics until I can make one “properly”, and by that I mean one that I would share with my district, colleagues, and publicly on the internet.    

When you look at my product, please keep in mind that although there doesn’t appear to be very much information on it, I really had to pare down what I was going to share, which was challenging to do, and the creation process was arduous for me!  I know that when I create my dream series of infographics that will be focused on each of the groups within the school community, I will be better equipped with the process of gathering pertinent information, how to choose the best graphics to showcase that information, and how to arrange all of these elements to create an impactful, interesting, educational, and exciting infographic.

Soooo, without further ado, here it is; it may not look like it, but I put so much time and energy into this, it truly was a labor of love!