Professional Foundations: Collaborating, Researching, and Networking

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Busy Women...

Professional Foundations: Collaborating, Researching, and Networking

Motivational Theory

Based upon two options PERCEPTUAL AROUSAL: uses surprise or uncertainly to gain interest. ; or INQUIRY AROUSAL: stimulates curiosity by posing challenging questions or problems to be solved

PAST USAGE: In Social Work 505, Human Behavior and the Social Environment, the professor found an activity wherein students would draw a representation of their public face (the figurative masks that they wear when at work, school, dealing will colleagues, peers, family) an then write out (below the drawing) what their true feeling and motivations are and how they differ from the above art, then the class discusses
PROPOSED USAGE: In Social Work 505, This week, I actually got the opportunity to rethink this activity for a fully online course, employing digital assets, drawings, and multimedia (if the learners choose to use them).

Synchronous course meetings take place using Bb Collaborate UltraStudents are sent into breakout groups of two and they work in a Google Slides environment, creating a collage of images, text, drawings, and multimedia. Then they discuss the significance of the chosen elements with their peers before convening with the larger class. They have the opportunity to share their findings, differences, and similarities with the class, and their finished collages.

Partners share their peers work...as opposed to each creator presenting their own

Online Collaborative Learning

Wherein students work together to explore ways to innovate, invent, and seek to create knowledge.

PAST USAGE: In my undergraduate course, CMAT212, Digital Publishing. I encouraged (mandated) students to regularly compose blog posts and share commentary on each other’s articles. They worked to collect free/cheap graphic design resources with which to use throughout their undergraduate careers

PROPOSED USAGE: In CMAT 212,  I do want to continue using this option as a means by which students share resources and grow their body of tools.
I believe a much better tool in making this useful is an open WIKI that students can: access and share with others outside of their courses, make any relevant commentary on same, and update when some tools become obsolete.

 Multimedia Theory

Based upon the Cognitive Learning Theory, wherein learning is acquired and memories are built by minimizing cognitive load on earners, whil introducing the Germane load and Intrinsic Load.

PAST USAGE: Working with formatting tests/exams for online presentation—this is a process that I help faculty perform fairly regularly. This is independent of reformatting tests and offering a diversity pf question-types to gain a greater understanding of whether students comprehend. We place questions from the bank/pool into a multi-page test presentation, with 5 – 10 questions per page of the tests.

PROPOSED USAGE: In looking through the eLearning/Multimedia theories, I wonder if it’s not better to further decrease the number of problems per page for online tests...and show a progress bar at the bottom of the page

Professional Foundations: Collaborating, Researching, and Networking

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Busy Women...

Coming from an island nation in the developing world, I have vivid memories of learning the alphabet, multiplication tables, and phonetic pronunciation in a schoolroom full of children—all speaking in unison. Rote repetition and strict adherence grammatical rules were the order of the day. Although it doesn’t seem like it should have, this lead to my early reading and comprehension (by age five I had skipped over seeing spot run in favor of Alice’s Adventures).

As I grew, my instructors favored different types of learning models. In fact, I was able to experience all of the major leaning theories in my education; without knowing their characteristics specifically. From recent study, I’ve begun to understand—and plan to further explore—specifics of these theories in action. I’m over-simplifying it a bit here, but here’s a synopsis:

• Objectivist (includes both Behaviorist and Cognitivist) learning theories can be characterized by an instructor-led environment learning through drills and practice.
• Instructional Design Theories: Motivation Theories of Learning, Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning, eLearning Theory
• Instructional Model: ADDIE, ID, ARCS

• In a Constructivist learning environment, the focus is on group work and peer-to-peer collaboration.
• Instructional Design Theories: Motivation Theories if Learning, Online Collaborative Learning, Communities of Inquiry (CoI). ELearning Theory
• Instructional Model

• In the Connectivist environment, students work—primarily individually—to gain knowledge and understanding from a variety of different media and sources.
• Instructional Design Theories: Motivation Theories of Learning, eLearning and Online Collaborative Learning tempered with Communities of Inquiry (CoI) and Practice (CoP)
• Instructional Model: ADDIE, ID, ARCS

Concept Mapping Learning Theories <!--[if gte mso 9]>

Final version of my concept map outlining the major learning theories.

 

(a work in progress) Click on the image to see full size-details

Click on the image to see full size-details

To make sense of the differences and similarities of these theories, my goal was to create a concept map. Surprisingly, this was an extremely difficult activity for me to tackle. I don’t think in mind-map—an organic chart is not a useful chart for me—I think in outlines and grids. I think in words and images, spreads and layouts.



So, as this is an activity to create a resource—not faculty or students—I decided to map for me. This decision came to me after three tries using some of the ‘styles’ of the multiple examples.



Putting It to the Test How can these theories be applied to real-classroom scenarios? Let’s take a look:

• SCENARIO: Math 111-Students will formulate and solve algebraic equations.
• LEARNING THEORY: Applying the Constructivist Theory, students are placed in small groups (4-5), then they first work individually to devise a series of algebraic problems of varying levels of complexity. They then test their knowledge by having members of the group each solving the entire pool of questions. This is followed up by the groups members comparing/explain final answers.

• SCENARIO: Econ 201-Students will understand how households (demand) and businesses (supply) interact in various market structures to determine price and quantity of a good produced.
• LEARNING THEORY: Connectivist theory (with a smattering of Constructivist) can be employed here as students work with a variety of resources; not least of which are their in-class peers, via a survey or poll, then of course online research utilizing visual analytics, articles and case studies to build their body of research.

• SCENARIO: Hist 301 Learning Objective: Students will demonstrate knowledge of the chronology and significance of major events and movements in U.S. history
• LEARNING THEORY: Objectivist theory seems to fit well in this scenario. Historical dates and significance can be learned by reading and practicing drills to build memories. In 14-Hundred-and-Ninety-Two, Columbus Sailed the Ocean Blue.

Excellent Sources:


Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism: Comparing Critical Features from an Instructional Design Perspective
Why Educators Need to Know Learning Theory

In assisting a colleague in preparing her portfolio I have searched the web high and low for excellent examples to assist in pages, headings, and possibly even layout. Finding diverse, responsive examples is not that easy. I believe this is because many ID professionals have an extensive education in Bloom's’ taxonomy, rubrics, effective course development, summative and formative assessments, etc. However, their graphic design education may be limited. This is odd to me—coming from a graphic design and communications background to instructional design. The foundations of graphic design and ID are closely related and in some cases duplicative. It’s all in the execution.

Rather than outline the differences and similarities here, I’ll skip the commentary and share a few well-executed Instructional Designer portfolios that give a comprehensive view of the professional and their skills, while also presenting an elegant layout and design aesthetic.

• Simone Jenifer: this portfolio is a subset of a graphic design portfolio and presents all media and samples on a single, responsive page.
• Kristin Anthony: Another blog-style site with fully responsive designed pages, and lightbox project pages. Beautifully executed
• Rachel Barnum: Blog-style Instructional Design Portfolio page
• Shalini Mathias: Prezi, interactive, motion graphics-based portfolio. THis is an interesting use of this medium. Featured projects are interesting and well-designed.
• Ginger Nichols: Responsive pinboard style portfolio, which features a separate page of individual projects

Once you've been inspired by these take a quick view at best practices for developing your online Instructional Design Portfolio, from eLearning Industry blog.

I have a potential freelance design client who wants her small charter school website to be everything to all current existing, and future potential audiences. It’s always eye-opening to have these preliminary conversations about the goal of the site. She has every confidence that the designer—whoever she chooses to complete this project—will be able to translate the mission, vision, and voice of her school using the web medium—as well as cram in every single tidbit of information onto the homepage, with text links, widgets, and social updates galore. I’m equally confident that she will come to understand the reality of the new site through a little research.

Basically, I told her ‘No’ your site can’t and shouldn’t be everything to everybody. Your site should tell the story of educational excellence, academic rigor, and nurturing mentorship for your students. It should be a useful portal for information gathering...This tool is primarily a sales pitch and secondarily an information hub, wrapped up in your inviting (and truthful) narrative. This means that your entry page will not be all things to all people.

To best explain my point I opened several browser windows with university websites and have her scroll the first page of each, asking her questions as she did this:

• Message: What, if anything can you guess about this organization from the page?
• Audience: To whom does the page speak?
• Action: What if anything do you want to click on, on this page?

 Click to view the mobile home pages of the following universities: Morgan State University Website, Gallaudet University, Loyola University Maryland, Delaware State University, and the newly redesigned Notre Dame of Maryland University: 

I took simple screen shots of each segment of each homepage and stitched them back together. What do you think are the most and least effective sites...do they achieve their goal of marketing the unique university experience..inviting further investigation, answering questions?

In looking at these seemingly unrelated (to her project) websites this client was able to look objectively at the content and come up with her own insights and conclusions without my forcing the issue.

1. There is a balance of information, words, and images that makes a site appealing.
2. There is the need for compelling story-telling to invite your audiences to dig deeper. A successful homepage tells your story and offers valuable information
3. Offering too much OR too little information to your audiences means an unsuccessful design. Which means that you have paid a graphic designer, and spent hours creating and updating content, and maybe even learning a new content management system for very little return on your investment.

After this brief exercise I was able to restart the conversation of the goal of her redesigned homepage and we narrowed her target audience to this: parents of high achieving elementary school students…obviously we dug a bit deeper for a more precise definition of the audience, but that’s the basic gist. After this was established, we discussed the secondary/tertiary audiences. They won’t be left out of the site design, but the information will be placed strategically, to guide visitors’ journey through the site, as they select the audience to which they belong.

There is always more than 1 audience for this the of project. However, in speaking effectively to your primary audience you can—at times—speak just as clearly to others.

I designed and sent out my first corporate e-newsletter back in 2010. The technology and the MagnetMail CMS were both fairly new to me. I was professionally familiar with the concept, but had never before had my designs virtually blasted into the inbox of over 10,000 professionals in one stroke of a keyboard! Years earlier, I was charged with layout of the quarterly (print) newsletter of the American Institute of Architects, a wholly different animal.

Today, I’ve just completed the layout of a new experiment in e-newsletters. My organization tasked me with turning a Google Site into the host and archive for our monthly news. I’m marrying website and newsletter here., now having the opportunity to hide expanded content in the eNews domain.  This is a far cry from the beginning of our marketing efforts…take a peek at the timeline:

From a multi-page PDF, to an online document, to today's site...

First, a print PDF that at times spanned 7 pages, Next 2-page Printable PDF, Now the Google Site

Enewsletters, while distinct in their layout and content are still built on the foundations of effective writing and basic HTML—things many design professions should be grounded in. What’s the difference between the e-newsletter, print newsletter, and a regular website?

Compare: Newsletter, E-News, & Websites

These three are all content marketing tools, simultaneously informational and promotional. However, they employ slightly different delivery methods.

NEWSLETTERS
The newsletter is largely a print publication, with multiple pages, multiple articles, and (usually) multiple advertisements, to financially sustain such a expensive routine undertaking. Printing costs money folks.

• Benefits of a newsletter include, very importantly, the user experience. Newsletters are delivered to members, there’s a exclusivity in membership (… this is not something that just anybody receives)! Recipients of this newsletter can read and reread articles, dog-ear the pages, make notes in margins, use them to augment scholarly work, and save them for later…or even just place them strategically around an office or living room to look smart.
• Cons of a newsletter: a major con is that while everything above it possible, you will rarely know if people do one or more of those activities. Paper and ink do not yield analytics.

WEBSITES
Websites are fantastic for sharing your company, organization, and ideas with your target audiences and anyone else interested in your topic—who stumbles across your site. It’s a fact that many of us who should be updating our website content on a regular basis, rarely do. Instead websites are repositories for much important, if static, information. We more often rely on social media for up-to-the-minute updates for our clients, audience, and followers.

• Benefits of websites: your voice, your design, your rules! This is a huge benefit over having an online presence comprised only of social media. As for others, your website is a unique URL that can the address for seekers of knowledge, truth, or your expertise. The more it gets known, the more it is shared, and saved, and distributed by search engines. It can grow in popularity without any additional monetary output on the part of your audiences ...hopefully that makes sense.
• Cons of a website: remember to update your website! Larger sites can become unwieldy and difficulty to keep up-to-date on a regular basis. Sad but true.

ENEWS
This medium relies upon two things we’ve already discussed, effective writing and websites. The enews letter is not a fully developed website with sub-pages, main and secondary navigation. Instead, it’s snippets of useful, interesting content that leads the reader AWAY from the newsletter TO your websites, or contact forms, or articles, or informational pages…things that invariably live on your website, related websites, or your social media platforms. They also rely upon pithy, interesting writing.

www.kb.mailchimp.com/campaigns/ab/about-ab-testing-campaigns

Effective writing is a science: Enews designers go through rigorous testing—of seemingly simplistic aspects of the content—to find a formula that works. In my career, I’ve worked with different communications teams to test various aspects of organizations’ newsletters for the winning combinations that yield a  greater rates of  opens, click-throughs, reads, subscribes (as opposed to unsubscribe), and shares… much of the important testing starts at the subject line. Poorly written subjects mean your email might never get opened. Effective e-News testing goes beyond that, of course, from the placement of images in relation to text, to different ways to present seemingly indistinct information.

• Benefits of ENews: If you want to know how many of your audience is reading your newsletter, it’s all right there in your analytics. Enews publications also dive traffic to other places here you can track your audience, your website, and social media streams.
• Cons of ENews: Brevity is the key here. Your enews article MUST be a textual sound bite—the appetizer that entices your reader to click to read more, learn more, or sign up! It’s possible to host a feature article in your enewsletter, but it’s a terrible risk that your readers will stop there and not interact with the rest of the analytics driven document. Needless to say, you want good writers working on the e-news, people who can turn a phrase….not the most verbose member of your team.

Learn more about testing Enews and mailing lists from Media Shift
Learn more about testing campaigns from MailChimp

In moving to promote the multimedia resources, I planned a brief, 2-hour, open house event to showcase the newest resources available to the community. This was accomplished with assistance from the team in the IT department.

First, as always, I started with the concept of technology and multimedia. The ideas were flying fast and loose until I reigned them in…simplicity is key to getting across any message. I settled on the icon cloud theme.

There is a level of exclusivity to being invited in card, with a hand scribbled note.

I’m probably a throwback, a relic, but I believe that people like to receive invitations to RSVP in a tangible format, rather than electronic. The next idea that followed was the invitation card. This was to be hand signed and delivered before the electronic messages began spamming the entire community.

The incidentals were then taken care of by our event sponsors: the freebies and other give-aways were furnished by Panopto and Smart Thinking. For my part, I created a series of informational fact sheets and branded signage—along with the updated website and e-blast messages, to pull this all together.

The most important part, however, was the hands on demonstrations and explanations that were given during this brief event. On the day we saw over 100 people in the 2 hours and I repeated my elevator pitch for the Record & Go Studio two-dozen times…whew.


All in all, it was a success.

Complaining about work on social media is like farting in an elevator. You can't escape the fact that you did it.

One morning I switched on my computer to find this series of status updates at the top of my Facebook (Fb) Newsfeed:

• My boss calls me while I shower, she calls while I brush my teeth and pack my lunch, then I am trying to drive and she calls me again, so I pull over and try to talk to her, but she screams at me and hangs up a few times without telling me why she is flipping out. "WHO DO YOU WORK FOR?!!!"…
• Two more days of being bludgeoned before the weekend arrives...in my next life I would prefer to have more choices...
• She's gotten into the habit of abusing me, but since she pays me I am not allowed to complain. I think I need to start going home and being unable to work when she treats me too badly, because this shit will kill me. Must take stand, to preserve so-called sanity...

This old friend of mine, Robin*, was obviously disgruntled and feeling trapped by her chosen work. So much that she had to vent on social media. I sent her a concerned message about her tirade. In the end I had to ask “...are you sure you want to voice your disdain for your boss/job on the world wide web?”

I felt that I had to respond to her. This woman is my friend, and I’ve seen the worst case scenario play out in two similar situations. Individuals, friends of mine, have lost jobs in their respective fields after badmouthing their direct supervisor or company on Facebook. One of these has not been able to get another position in his field.

A Little Perspective

Of course, we should have the freedom to badmouth whomever we choose when speaking to individual peer networks. However, the internet is a complex arena where private conversation is concerned; Facebook doubly so:

If your privacy settings are set to only share your content with your peer network, you have a strong layer of protection from the rest of the web. But, ask yourself, “Do my ‘friends’ also protect their comments, shares, likes, and updates with the same settings?” Maybe some do, but definitely not all of them…

Once your friend comments on your negative work-related update, or shares it, it belongs to them and can appear to everyone who follows them. If they have an 'open’ profile then anyone who finds them on the internet can view their Fb activity—without even logging in!

To gauge whether you may potentially face negative repercussions at work answer this question, are any of your Fb friends also your coworkers, or close friends of your co-workers? If you’re not sure don’t risk your job by bitching unfettered on social media!

An Unforeseen Repercussion

Back when I was in grad school, a fellow student was going through a stressful time at work. In Fb status updates she told the world daily, that she hated her boss, her job, coworkers, and the company.

On one occasion I even commented that she was being harsh. She didn't care, she had been interviewing regularly and was preparing to accept an offer. Our paths crossed again three years later. I was tasked with vetting graphic designer resumes for an open position in my company and this woman applied. The memory of those graphic rants about the past job jumped immediately to mind. How long would it take her to become disenchanted before social media mudslinging began? Could I trust her not to badmouth my organization and friends online? Could I  risk unleashing her on my beloved organization? She did not get an interview.

Back to Robin…

She immediately responded to my note with this: “Guess who doesn’t care…Maybe I will get fired….if she's not gonna pretend she's nice and reasonable, I'm not either.”

I get it, she hates her job and plans to be fired. She’ll have the opportunity to find another job—and hopefully have a more fulfilling experience. Hopefully, when she is back on the job market she won't be applying with or interviewing with anyone who has had to read these hyper-negative status updates about her current boss.


*Her name’s not Robin
Reprinted: Still relevant...updated from the original—to accommodate recent Fb privacy settings... 

In my new role as instructional yadda yadda, I have had the opportunity to oversee the final touches on the university's recording studio...and in doing that, to build relationships!

 To that end, my team and another on campus will be hosting a multimedia open house later this semester--on the cheap.

We're working together to plan the events, activities, and promotions. For me it's imperative to get all of my work on this project done and dusted before the end of the month, as I will be otherwise indisposed for most of early April.

Detail of my sketches.

It's crunch time right now! However, I want to take a few moments to share my design process for these promotions. It's a bit elementary for seasoned designers--or in-house designers even--to develop a full, comprehensive creative brief. And unnatural for a team of 1, but as I'm partnering with others on campus, I had to spell out the projects, rationales, and various media by using a creative brief. And to be honese, it has helped me to focus more quickly that usual, for this period of hard work. After sharing the brief and getting team ideas on tweaks, I've begun to craft the various promotional messages (copy) and layout the various media (signage, digital and otherwise, a couple website updates that require custom photography and writing, and a small run of elegant printed invitations).

Here's where I went with the invites.

Mind you: we'll be printing and finishing, and delivering these babies by hand, and on the cheap. So I opted for B/W with no bleeds. This almost reminds me of a typography project that I've given students in the past--to make them think hard about their design decisions. Pictured is one of about 8 design solutions that I explored.

Cheers, S

It’s been 6 months, and time to revisit the communications plan in the Office of Academic Technology Services (ATS). The team has been fighting an uphill battle (one with forward progress, at least) to grow their client base, and educate constituents about our proficiencies, resources, and services.

My brain has been racked for the past couple weeks, in anticipation of today’s team meeting: I’d be unveiling a new tagline and marketing materials that grow on the ones developed about half a year ago. Well, the reception was good. And the ATS team is ready for the continued roll-out. Picture it:

Academic Technology Services: Learn. Create. Grow

It builds back from our university mission and tagline; Growing the Future. Leading the World.

Click on a thumbnail to view full-sized "LEARN." poster:

1. Ditch the Box: technology advances mean that we can leave the large portfolio case at home. Especially since a printed book that outlines your best works just as well. Some designers have ditched print altogether and showcase digital media samples; bringing a tablet/laptop on which to show their work. This can still allow for interactivity, if you design the digital portfolio with this built in
2. Simplicity. Simplify. Simple: use an uncluttered simple layout.
3. Brand Consistency is key. Keep the look of all consistent: the book, the leave behind, the resume, cover letter and business card.
4. Get Feedback: once you’ve settled on your designs find out from peers, industry professions and art directors what they think.
5. Leave a Leave Behind: after a stellar interview and portfolio review, you must put something in the interviewer's hand that will remind them of your fabulous self once you've gone. You want them to reach for their phone (or whatever) and have their hand linger over your leave behind...instead of making tha call they pick up your designed piece and handle it. At they review they can't help but ponder how awesome it would be to have someone with your skill, talent and creativity working on heir team... they could finally get "X" done right, etc.

Get some design inspiration from Pinterest

Articles outlining the Digital Divide began appearing in Ed Tech journals a few years back but I could not get a clear understanding of what it really was. At the time I worked in a small private university, with less than 20% financial aid kids and less than 14% minorities; our constituents were the direct heritors of the positive side of the divide. While the digital divide was definitely happening, it was happening a long way away.

HERE'S WHAT I DID KNOW

At that time, as now:

• Practically all college students had smart phones, 
• Many students that I encountered opted to complete homework (writing papers and discussion posts, etc.) using their phones, and 
• Every poor person I encountered in Baltimore owned a smart phone.

I simply conflated the groups to develop my opinions on the subject; poor, inner-city black, students. Embarrassed, I recall once saying to my director, “The digital divide is largely becoming a myth…today more students than not [particularly poor inner city students] have access to the internet, online tools, and applications to get schoolwork done.” While superficially true, I had no empirical evidence of what poor kids were actually doing.



Impecunious youth at our private university were the ones who had to get work study jobs as part of their financial aid packages, but even they had grown up with the web at home.




It didn’t help my understanding not personally knowing people living in poverty and unable to afford the supremely necessary home computer. I simply could not relate.

A Commodore 64

As a kid of the 80s, I got my first computer at age 8—about a decade before computers became a necessary accessory for US households. My sister and I programmed computer games—in Basic—for fun. In high school and college I always had both a Mac and Windows computer on which to work—as a graphic designer and artist having both was a personal imperative. Between undergrad and graduate schools I purchased, used, and equipped with the appropriate software packages, a total of four personal computers (two Mac, two Windows).

Like I said, I didn’t know. And that was the missing piece in my puzzle.

Today, I work at a state school; a  public, historically black university with over 80% of its students in receipt of financial aid. The majority of whom are black Americans, a vast majority of those from the Baltimore area, and many of whom are using their first personal computers, ever.

Back in the private university world of privilege, undergraduate students—who opt to complete homework on their phones grew up with desktops, laptops, and tablets in houses with secure internet access, wired and wireless routers, and monthly bills that were paid on time. They had the opportunity to bring their own laptops to schools that boasted open WiFi, or were given computers on which to work, by their schools. The poor Baltimore kids, some the first in their families to go to college, never had an equivalent or anything close. Even though today all of these kids have smart phones that can allow them to complete projects and do research on the fly, only the first group actually takes advantage of that fact.

On the wrong side of the chasm that we call the digital divide are the poorer, blacker students.

Personal Interactions with  Students Opened my Eyes

NADIA, CLASS OF '17

My department shares an office with the university’s library tech support team. Often students walk in with a computer or network problem. Rather than have them wait for one of the two technicians or leave a message, I usually field the easier questions to help get students back to the two things I’ve always taken for granted, understanding and access [to the computer].

On the morning before our first and only snow day of the year a young woman came in asking for help to install and start up Skype. She was scheduled to have the first important interview of her career on the following day. Nutrition and Dietetics undergrads are required to complete a six-month, 40-hour per week internship before they sit their certification exam. This university senior was nervous and excited for the upcoming virtual meeting.

Her problem was that Skype was hanging up instead of starting quickly, as it had earlier. I ordered her to grab a seat at the coffee table, plug in the power cable, and start up her Macbook while I finished writing an email at my desk.

As she did this, I informed her that one way to avoid any issues with virtual meetings was to “ALWAYS use a wired connection, rather than rely on WiFi.”


" What do you mean by wired connections...I don't understand," she replied.

I explained what an Ethernet cable was and where to plug it in. She was still confused.

Admittedly, a bit perturbed, I asked her how she accessed the internet at her off-campus apartment. In her entire life, she had only ever used a library computer or WiFi hotspot from a phone to get online, never having a secure wired internet connection in her own home.

Understanding her predicament, I asked a few probing questions while I connected my spare Ethernet cable to her laptop and played with the Skype application. I started and restarted Skype, “have you used Skype on your computer—your phone—another campus computer before…experienced any similar problem…do you ever change network settings…do you have a login password for this Mac…what time is the interview…” etc. While we worked we also talked about her ambitions for the interview and beyond.

Within minutes I showed her how to see and edit her network settings, adjust and test her audio, uninstall and reinstall the Skype app (we got it working), and then gave a few tips about what to do during the interview to avoid technical snags.

This is a young woman who has a 3.5 GPA, and a passion for working with children suffering rare genetic disorders. She has excelled in a difficult educational field and has applied to one of the more competitive internships for her major—accepting under 50 students per year, nationwide. In her undergraduate tenure she has worked at the campus library, become well-respected in the Mathematics department (she told me that they would loan her of one of their laptops to take home for a backup interview computer), and has developed larger ambitions for a doctorate in the field of public health. If anyone does, this woman deserves every opportunity to succeed.

MICHAEL, CLASS OF '18

A few days earlier, a young man came to my office with a problem, his professor had recently posted the weekly quiz online, but his computer did not allow him to download the necessary test-taking plugin. Please recall that I’m not tech support and I don’t actually know the precise fix for this problem. However, it’s something that has slowed my progress in the past. I suggested to him that the Windows firewall settings might need to be changed to allow the software download. An easy fix, if it works.

This young man did not have his computer with him, so I queried him more about the error messages then I gave him the number for the help desk and told him to call them while at his computer—he could then relay the specific errors or prompts to the Help Desk agent in real time.

The next day he returned to my office with his laptop and asked for my assistance. Normally I would have handed him my phone and restated my directive from the previous day, but the touchscreen laptop in his hand was the Toshiba Satellite, my latest Windows laptop, and frankly the bane of my existence (it’s not great). Rather than my sending him to the experts, we walked through a solution together. My assumption was right, a quick adjustment to his settings allowed download of the application.

On his way out, this third year student thanked me profusely and remarked in the doorway, “this is my first computer, y’know.” My heart melted for him. In another year he would enter the world of work (or graduate school) with only a 12-month experience in working with and trouble shooting his own personal computer.

The impact of his innocuous statement hit me. This thing—that I and a large segment of Americas youth take for granted—is foreign, a difficult concept, a largely unknown and misunderstood commodity to many poor black students.

AT LAST I UNDERSTAND

Now, as back then, practically all students have smartphones, but the poor ones, the black ones, the ones from underprivileged Baltimore have never had a computer at home on which to write a paper, use the calculator app, or plagiarize from Wikipedia. So, they never developed the skills to transform their powerful smartphone into a powerful educational tool. They rarely make the leap to write that paper in Word 365 or Google Docs, using their thumbs and built-in spell check.

The Digital Divide is real. And it’s growing.