Welcome, one and all, to Erin's InfoTech blog!
The purpose of this blog is to post weekly reflections from my upcoming internship with the Saint Mary's College Dept. of Information Technology. The internship is made possible through a collaborative effort of IT and the Communication Dept., as I will be examining the multiple and diverse roles of communication within the Saint Mary's community. I will be working with various members of the IT Dept. and with Dr. Vince Berdayes of the Comm. Dept to understand communication made possible by and within Info Tech as it relates to Saint Mary's. Special thanks go to Kathy Hausmann and Dan Mandell for helping me develop this internship, providing assistance and encouragement.
Communication has always fascinated me. Especially remote communication. As a Humanistic Studies major and an Anthropology minor, I have long been interesting in how the past communicates to the present, how the present will communicate to the future, and how different cultures communicate with each other. Preservation of information, whether it be user manuals, diaries or clay accounting ledgers, is something every single culture (past, present, and future) attempts. Some are more successful than others, but no one and nothing desires to be forgotten. The difference between past civilizations and the current world we live in is that we possess marvels that were unimaginable 20, 30 years ago. We are able to communicate with members of our own community at miraculous speeds, even though they are across campus. Through simple web-based application as e-mail and instant messaging, we can talk in "real" time with friends, coworkers, professors, family and classmates no matter their location on- or off-campus.
This kind of remote technology is dependent on many people, much time, and a LOT of hard work. The folks in the IT Dept. work some pretty insane hours, all for the good of the college, its students, its faculty and its staff. Through their diligence and skill, we have a (relatively) functional e-mail, a huge set of databases, a LDAP server that does just about everything, and a whole host of things of which I know nothing. That is one of the major aims of this next semester: learning what makes an IT dept. tick, and how communication (verbal, non-verbal, text, etc.) makes it all possible. What is "good" communication, and what is "bad"? What forms are most or least effective; does that change when dealing with different constituents (students, faculty, staff, IT staff specifically)? What kinds of information do members of the community want to hear about, and in what manner?
I also seek an understanding of technology and communication from a different angle than the present. I am, first and foremost, a student. My understandings of communication technology within Saint Mary's is primarily that of the student user, and for good reason. I spent a year and a half working in the Trumper Computer Cluster, a year working in ResNet, and I am currently the Technology Commissioner for the Board of Governance. I have, however, branched out from just the student user. As the Helpdesk Student Manager, I must; an understanding of the fac/staff user is required for the job. The last user in the User Tridiuum is that of the Tech User. I fall somewhat into that category myself, as a student member of IT. But the difference between IT users and everyone else is that they do more than use the technology.
They create it. They maintain it. They facilitate what everyone else can't even fathom.
Creation (and maintenance) of communication technology looks at what I and the other users mindlessly take advantage of on a daily basis, and looks at it hard. And differently. All in all, it's pretty amazing what you can do as a creator. Maintaining is less exciting, but still very important. Just using...well, like I said. It's fairly mindless. Working with the other aspects, such as hardware, software, spacing, timing, requirements, and so much more...it's like working with a huge jigsaw puzzle. It's complex, complicated, time-consuming, frustrating. You can hate it one day and love it the next. But in the end, there's a certain satisfaction in knowing that you're intimately involved with the life-blood of the College.
I love jigsaw puzzles. And I'm looking forward to the next semester, and all that I'll learn.
