Thing #23 - Wrapping Up

I feel like this has been more of a crash course for me rather than a journey. Only being with the library for two months, I was rather late in starting this web challenge. I feel thankful and lucky that I am of a generation that was exposed to and grew up with the beginnings of the Internet. But even though I've been living through it, it has definitely passed me by. Even if learning new technologies was your entire life, it would be extremely difficult to keep up with things. So for most people, who have to work, take care a family or friends, among a million other things, we can very easily be left behind. I'm thankful for the opportunity to play a bit of catch up throughout these exercises. I've managed to make my way through new aspects such as blogging, but I had no idea about the more technical side of things such as Google Docs, Wikis or RSS feeds. If nothing else, at least these challenges have given us an exposure to some of the new vocabulary that floods our technological world.

And as I started, I must end with the mention of my grandfather. He believed that we could make things better by working towards new technologies as long as we held true to teaching the basics of reading. With that as our primal tool, the goals we can accomplish are boundless. As a precursor to the digital age, my grandfather made use of the tools he had around him. Long before the Internet and hypertext he had a way of sharing what points he found important or needed further research. He attained this with the simple markings of a red pencil and a straight edge.