I find myself wishing I was at least 10 years younger–a waste of time of course, but it’s hard not to go there. I’ve developed a new passion, or maybe it’s just a deeper passion, about some things that I want to know everything about.
I did not grow up with a computer. In fact, I thought the electric typewriter was an extraordinary invention! But I love the internet, my new Macintosh computer, and all the blogs I put on my iGoogle homepage. And I have always loved education. Now it’s distance education and how information, knowledge and learning can take place anytime, anywhere–or, all the time and everywhere. My background is in adult learning and vocational education, but until recently my experience and knowledge have been classroom based.
This fall I started a master’s program at a small liberal arts college in Arizona where the student designs the course of study and then becomes a self-directed learner of the information she wants to know about (there is assistance and guidance of course). The study is in business with a focus on e-learning. I’m just finishing my first semester and decided it was time to blog about being a student again, in my sixth decade. Most of the time I think it’s really a great age to be in school again (which in my case means in front of my computer). No grade pressures–we don’t get grades, no sense of competition–except with myself, and nothing to prove to anyone else. And right now, it beats trying to get a job.
