My first computer was a Hewlett-Packard personal computer. Before that personal computer, I had knowledge of computer skills from school classes in my country, Dominican Republic.  I studied the MS-Dos program.  We used to have the 5 ¼ double density mini-floppy disks from old.  Learning about computers in my country was very basic, but gave me a good start for the following years.   I consider myself a digital native. 

     Since then, I have tried to play with all technology available to me.  I started using the computer for essays, editing them and printing them out, instead of writing them by hand and handing them in for class, whenever possible.  Like Marc Prensky said in his paper Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, I’m one of the natives that prefers to “edit a document on the screen (pg. 2)” rather than “printing out the document written on the computer in order to edit it (pg. 2)” on paper.  I definitely learn tasks easier if I learn them in a game or on the computer.  When I had to take SAT tests to prepare for college, one of my resources to learn and practice the tests were these CDs sold by Encore that had a line of products like Math Advantage with different math topics, like Statistics, or Real World Math, or Geometry.  It was definitely easier to practice my math skills for the SATs using a CD game.  Prensky said in his paper Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, Part II: Do They Really Think Differently?, “there is a great deal of evidence that children’s learning games that are well designed do produce learning, and lots of it (pg. 6).”

     As I mentioned earlier, the old computers I used had the MS-DOS system which was based on functions keys and command prompts.  While I had to learn those, at the time they weren’t user friendly.  Now that I don’t have to remember all those commands, I consider it educational, since it helps me understand the current programs and makes it easier to catch up on the new buttons and features that make life easier.  The fact that I was raised with a computer gave me a leg up on my parents, who are trying to learn the technology and computer world right now.  My brain is trained differently so my skills may not be new, but like Prensky mentioned in his paper Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, Part II: Do They Really Think Differently?, I’m part of the “new generation with a very different blend of cognitive skills (pg 4)” than that of my parents. 

     At work I have to use my word processing, spreadsheet, web navigation, and basic e-mail skills as well as how to do power point presentations.  The internet connection, both at home and at work, is Verizon DSL, so I’m familiar with it.  Since I get out of work every day at 5:00 p.m. I would be login in to work on the course around 6:30-7:00 p.m.