Throughout my life, I've received hundreds of calls from my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, (and their friends) beginning with "Can you help me *insert tech question here*"  At first, I thought it was cute. Then one day, after a long, frustrating call, I realized there was a problem:

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My mom wanted to send a video from her phone to her friend's phone without losing quality. Yes, eventually we got it done. But two things alarmed me:

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1. We had already gone over this

2. The level of frustration in my mom's voice communicated genuine suffering

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I don't want my mom to suffer. And I want our phone calls to be time for connection, not tedious tutoring sessions. After that experience, it dawned on me. My parents (both baby boomers) are part of a generation that did not grow up with the personal technology that our current world is being built upon. They are not as literate in the language of personal technology because they were not immersed in it as I was at a young age.

 

I used a cell phone as a child.

I sent emails as a child. 

I conducted research on the web as a child.

I discovered disturbing videos, harmful computer viruses, and convincing spam as a child.

I created digital art as a child.

I built an online business (within a video game) as a child.

I listened to guided meditations on youtube as a child.

I posted cringy FB posts as a child.

 

My parents did not. They have not learned the fundamentals of the digital language by being immersed in it from their youth. In order to participate in the digital age you must have a degree of fluency with the "language" that governs your personal technology.

 

If you want to learn Spanish, I recommend you learn from someone who grew up in a Spanish-speaking country. Sure, a formally trained Spanish teacher will be able to educate you on proper grammar and technical specifics. But a native speaker will give you context. They will be able to help you say things in the right way depending on your situation. They may have shortcuts and simpler ways to understand a phrase, and they will provide practical learning to support you as you plan your trip to their home country. You don't learn Spanish to perform well on a test. You learn it to go on a backpacking trip and be able to communicate with the locals.

 

The same idea applies to learning the language on which personal technology is built. It's less important to know how many "bytes" are in a gigabyte (and what a "byte" actually is) and more important to know that 10 minutes of HD video, (or about 250 photos) taken from a smartphone typically takes up about 1 gigabyte of space on your phone.

 

I don't want you to understand what a gigabyte is so you can explain it to me, I want you to understand so that when you are deciding between a cell phone with 128 or 256 gigabytes of memory, you will know that the larger storage size will afford you about 100 hours more video (or about 2500 additional photos).

 

Finally, staying with the metaphor, you learn Spanish the best when conversing with other Spanish speakers. And, ideally, once you become relatively fluent, you never need to consult a Spanish tutor again, because with your foundational knowledge, you can continue learning on your own, one conversation at a time.

 

I want you to learn by using your technology toward joyful, practical, and meaningful goals. Then, it's a double win: You re-enforce your understanding of how to properly back up your computer, and your computer is backed up. Then, the next time you want to back up your computer, you slip on your cape, strap your boots tightly, sip your strong drink, crank the music, and plug in that external hard drive like a boss.

 

 

About Joshua

 

Joshua graduated from Florida State University with a degree in Advertising & Communication. While pursuing a job in an ad agency, he changed gears and studied anthropology in Ecuador, living with an indigenous community on the edge of the rainforest. The experience reset his digestive tract and opened his eyes to new worldviews, deepening his curiosity about life. Shortly after, he partnered with a non-profit organization, Open Future Institute, and piloted their innovative education program, The QUESTion Project, with students at his University. 

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After developing the curriculum with his colleagues, the QUESTion Project was invited to be taught as an elective course at a public high school in the Bronx, New York. Joshua moved to NYC to continue building the organization and facilitating the QUESTion Project with students and teachers in NYC and beyond. The project has now been taught to over 12,000 students across NYC and LA.

 

When opportunities mounted, he moved to LA to continue his career as a filmmaker, and since then he has stumbled his way in high-heels through a musical, led an improv workshop for corporate professionals in a leopard onesie, sprinted through WWI trenches while mortars and mustard gas exploded all around him (on HBO's 'Perry Mason'), and flung hula hoops at bad guys while starring in his film, Hula Hoop Boy which he also wrote and directed. (Winner of multiple awards, including Best Action Short - Independent Shorts Awards).

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He has also dove head first into the Web3 (blockchain-empowered internet) and ai technology rabbit hole. He was an analyst with DefiBoost (a crypto marketing company) and is currently working with public school administration to find a way forward during these unprecedented times of technological innovation, where every student has access to a super-intelligent ai assistant.

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Joshua's Credentials

 

• Bachelor's Degree - Florida State University (Advertising) 

• Innovator in Education

  • Member of the founding team that built a non-profit education program ("The QUESTion Project") now in over 10 schools serving thousands of high-school students -  https://openfutureinstitute.org/

• Technology Analyst - DefiBoost

 

Proficient In:​

• Google Suite - (Gmail, Drive, etc) / Microsoft Email Clients - (Outlook, 365) 

• Microsoft Office Suite - (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) 

• Video/Audio Editing - (iMovie, MovieMaker, Divinci, Final Cut ProX, Twisted Wave)

• Smart Home Tech - (smart speakers, nest wifi, smart home devices)

• Website Builders - (Wix / Squarespace) 

• Photo Editing - (Affinity/Adobe Photoshop/Canva)

• Video/photo editing (Divinci and Affinity)

• File/Media Storage - (Dropbox, iCloud, Google Drive/Photos)

• Assistant (Siri, Google, Alexa) 

• Chat (WhatsApp, iMessage, Google Chat, Discord, Telegram) 

• Maps (Google Maps, Apple Maps)

• Music Streaming - (iTunes, Spotify, Pandora)

• Social Media (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok)

• Video Chat - (Zoom, Skype, Google Hangouts)

• Video Streaming - (Xfinity, Netflix, Youtube)