Sometimes What You See Isn't What Others Get!

So yesterday I had some time to spare at the school where I study, as opposed to the school where I teach. So I decided to work on my blog in their computer lab. The only Macs they had were OS 9 or whatever you call the OS before OS X, but they were pretty colours. I sat down at one of the hot pink ones and opened Netscape, but it was a really old Netscape, one with a lighthouse and something curling around it as an icon. I ignored that and got myself to the "Create New Post" area and began writing.

I'm still getting used to writing knowing that although no one seems to be looking at my blog, people might, and what do I want to be public about. And yesterday I had a strange keyboard, and even though it's still QWERTY, my fingers aren't as intuitive. So I was making strange on about two levels, but I wrote and enjoyed it.

The screen didn't have the bold, italics, link, and spell check icons that exist on my up-to-date Netscape at home, but I figured I can manage without them by using my limited HTML and my own double-checking of my spelling. That was okay. And it was okay that I was writing in a field with a different font and different coloured-font than would appear on the screen. I've learned to be used to that. But what I didn't expect, especially as I had been extolling my design choices, was that the screen would look very different than what I saw on my home screen.

The title background was much smaller and an ugly tone of the colour. There was no side frame and the links were messily displayed below all my entries. The font was different, and the width of the text, something I want to be no wider than the text in a normal-sized hard-covered book, went all across the screen. It looked ugly and amateurish. I was so disappointed.

I am assuming that the old version of Netscape was the source of the problem. What I don't understand is why the school where I study hadn't updated their version. Afterall, it can be downloaded for free. I don't know enough technically to understand if they can't because of the old OS, which does cost money to update, or because no one ever sits down and does the downloading.

I guess I'm spoiled where I teach because our laptops are kept at least up to the next to the most recent versions of software, so I'm used to a fairly current workspace. And maybe I should count my blessings and be grateful. It is so much easier to learn in an up-to-date environment with support easily accessible.

Aesthetic Learning

So I spent hours last night playing with my blog. I changed templates a couple of times, then when I settled on one that kept my text relatively narrow, within the glance range for reading, I changed all the colours. That was fun and I love the result. I used QuickColor - http://kohaistyle.com/scripts/quickcolor/ - to find and chose harmonizing colours. I'll probably do it again in a few days. Maybe move from purples to reds, and gain more control over altering the code in the template. It's all fun.

So colour is really important to me, and text-breaks, so that the screen looks readable, not like a massive brick wall to be loosened and decoded. And font, too. Is this font too big? Does it make what I'm writing look childish? I want to be readable and respected, taken seriously. I realize I'm already challenging that by writing in dark purple, but I love the colour and it's dark enough to be pass for "dark" rather than "purple." Many people "read" purple semiotically and subconsciously see i t as revealling something about the character of the writer.

Do you?

Have you figured out anything about who I am?

• gender;
  
• age;
  
• economic status;
  
• educational level;
  
• nationality;
  
• computer knowledge; and/or
  
• character?
  

What do you base those assumptions on? Can you identify where you find the clues?

That's it for today, on a computer in the school lab, on an unfamiliar computer platform.

How Visual is Text, and Why?

So I sucessfully changed my blog's colour. Does it say more? Is it more me? I think so.

I'm using this blog as a learning project and each day hope to both post and make new changes in the appearance and/or functionality of the blog. I have never liked orange and even the amber shades don't really appeal to me. I have always, and I mean always, going back to at least being four years old, loved many of the purple shades. The one I chose I find aesthetically satisfying. Plus there's the satisfaction of finally figuring out where in the template to add in the right numbers to get what I wanted.

I am not from the technical end of learning the computer; HTML is not a natural language for me. I am from the communication and aesthetic crowd, and I only learn what technical stuff I have to be able to do what I want. My one advantage is that I have a good ability at seeing possibilities. Then I'm stuck with figuring out the technical aspects that I have to deal with and/or learn in order to achieve what I want. It's phenomenologically difficult.

I find code truly ugly and difficult to read; possibly being slightly dyslexic has added to this. However, from time to time I have tried to learn a little when I really wanted to do something and knew that there is a way, using HTML. For example, when I saw a fellow teacher (or "professor" as we were designated in one round of contract bargaining in my system) when I saw this fellow teacher use bullets in her WebCT postings, I was driven to learn the HTML for bullets. (I love bullets; they force information into such neat clear packages.)

Any techies out there are probably laughing at such a minor piece of learning, but hey, I'm honest and it was another little piece of knowhow acquired.

Anyway, to change the colour of my blog,

• I found out how to get to the code;
  
• I found out the RGB code for the colour I wanted;
  
• I tried out that code where I thought it belonged in the HTML, using cut and paste;
  
• I checked the preview to see if the colour of the title had worked; and
  
• I reversed the edit and then repeated that step until I got the title's colour changed.
  

A minor step (would the techies please stop laughing!) but it got me there, and made me feel happy, and, yes, smart.

Two-Handed Writing

I used to be a handwriter, squeezing out poems and plans, wishing I could type or get printed, but knowing that would never happen. Then I was pushed into learning about linguistics and how people learn to write and think about writing. At the same time, I decided to use the Bank Street Writer word pro myself so I could get used to it, and know enough about it to use with writing-phobic students. I discovered my own prose voice; I discovered writing my way.

Now I look at screens and pages and think about the text interface, and how appearance communicates and how images are increasingly central in our culture. I wonder when audio will be recognized. I wonder how all this affects education and, more importantly, learning.