Thank you, Squared Online

It is now a month since I signed up for Google’s Squared Online (#squaredonline) and I think this gives me the perfect excuse to reflect here on what I have gained from the course so far.

It is often the case that one enters a particular project with a very clear idea of what it will be like and what experiences and knowledge will be gained from such experience. That was not quite the case with Google’s Squared Online , which is the reason why I signed up for the course in the first place.

Online learning is now a common experience: Lynda.com and Coursera are just some great examples of successful learning experiences. Squared Online is a bit more different, thought. It is truly interactive and hands on. Reflection is not only encouraged, it is compulsory as part of the compulsory assignments.

Under the guidance of the course lecturers and resources that are part of the first module of the course and reinforced by the comments and assignments of my fellow students I have been able to learn this much already:

The internet has revolutionised our lives much more than any other cares to admit. We have adapted so easily to new channels of information that we don’t often realise that the information itself is also changing.

I am not making the best use of these new resources, and this applies to my professional and personal lives.

When preparing the Digital Life Slide assignment I realised that I am part of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, a blog, email, etc. I don’t consider myself a Luddite, far from it: I have been around computers since the early 1990s, I have two laptops, a tablet and a smart phone, which I use daily.

And yet, I now see, thanks to Squared Online, that I am not making the best use of the technology at my disposal to dig deeper into the many lines of communication and sources of information. Find my own blogs boring: I have failed to use them for a unique purpose, as such their purpose has diluted and they are little more than a notebook of random thoughts. My use of Facebook, Twitter and the like is very sporadic. My Facebook life video has put slides of people, activities and places which are mere footnotes in my everyday life, a friend pointed that out to me when I published the video. I seem to use Twitter just to attract the attention of the Customer Services of big companies – the ones who seem to be listening, even if they can do very little to solve the actual problem. I have not done anything in Pinterest and other similar sites since the day I joined them. I only check LinkedIn when I am looking for a job or for employees.

In summary, I am wasting my digital life. Squared Online has made me see the many opportunities available. I am most excited about the coming lectures and assignments because I see now how much they are going to help me to build a digital life I can be proud of.