Nikki Carder - MLIS Portfolio
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Technology

Jumping In

The Family Album

I’ve worked on the periphery of technology for many years, creating online forms, working with programming and operational staff, and acting as a liaison between business and technical areas. I thought I had a pretty fair understanding of technology. That changed when I entered the MLIS program. I jumped from the sidelines into the technical arena, and I made the jump during my first quarter.

 Jumping In

In Scott Barker’s introduction to the Internet, LIS541, I learned to code in HTML and created a website about the history of my house. (www.quavy.com/ncarder/house)  Learning HTML presented an interesting experience for me. I am old enough to have used a now obsolete mainframe word-processing system called Waterloo Script. In Script, formatting was done with tags, similar to HTML tags. So, in addition to gaining a new skill, being introduced to HTML was like being given a panoramic view of technology advancing and expanding. It enabled me to see first-hand how ideas and innovations build upon one another as they move forward.

 Building the website called on a multitude of new technological skills. I had to move files around using FTP and then SFTP. I learned to establish linkages and insert external files. I had to gain a general understanding of how all the pieces fit together to create a site that was fully functional and user friendly. I had to develop a testing method to ensure that my site was fully operational. Beyond that, I had to create the content that became the substance of the site. Each of the skills I had to learn in order to create my website represents a new tool in my professional and intellectual storehouse, and they should serve me well in the future.

The Family Album

All of the technical skills came together when I took  LIS511 (Systems Analysis) with Mel Oyler. The final requirement for the course was to analyze needs and develop requirements and a budget for an online family photo album. My family was interested in a communal album, so once I had completed the required assignment, I used it to move forward and, with some technical help, build an album. The result is an online album that allows us to share new photos and archive old family photographs for use by everyone. http://www.quavy.com/familyalbum/

In collaborating with my tech-savvy son to review potential online album programs, I was working as the user, but it was my project, and I wanted to follow it through from inception to implementation. To do this, I had to step into a much more technical arena. As I reviewed possible programs, I continually had to refer back to technical class materials, and frequently called my son to get explanations and clarifications. Because I wanted to build the album at little or no expense, it was important to work with the existing family hardware and software, so I had to understand the fundamental connectivity and interoperability issues involved. To make the album accessible to every family member, I had to structure it in a useful, organized way.

Every facet of this project involved some level of collaboration. With the survey I coordinated with my ultimate users; in developing the requirements I worked with the user information and my classmates;  the technical assessment and implementation, involved working with another technical person, my son, Eric.

I still wouldn't call myself a technical expert, but I'm far beyond where I began, and luckily I didn't enter the iSchool with the expectation of becoming a full-fledged "techie." What I wanted was a broad knowledge base, an overview.  I learned, to my relief,  that the  complexity of contemporary technology makes it very difficult to be an expert in every area, but I did gain the broad understanding of current technology that I was hoping for. By experiencing technical development first-hand, I know that regardless of my expertise level, I will always need to involve others - either to understand their needs, or more importantly,  to supplement my own technical abilities.

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