Gina Minks reflected recently on how she got into and stayed with technology as a career.  She has a call for women in technology to share their stories in an effort to show others why they should join us.

I came of age on the internet (my first listserve was a My So-Called Life fan group), so the opportunity to be comfortable with web technology was basically my millenial birthright.  Later on, an interest in photography led to a Digital Methods class and experimentation with Photoshop and Dreamweaver when I spent a semester at Hampshire College.  I put together an explorative website that further revelead layers of the same photo as you clicked on it as the class project, and assisted in building a website for another class project.  As a transfer to Humboldt State University, I needed work and placed my name on a call list for technology-related jobs feeling bolstered my experience at Hampshire.  I interviewed for a job with the Courseware Development Center and began in March of 2004.  My skills grew and a few years later turnover came.  I was given the position of Blackboard Administrator and coordinated the entire conversion to Moodle just fine. 

The thing is, through all this technical support, training, and development, I hadn't truly found a calling.  I enjoyed the challenge and responsibility, but it was largely just a job.  My major was Child Development and I was simultaneously trying to start a Sudbury School (efforts failed to lack of local interest, overestimated the progressiveness of this area).  I was passionate about learning - and while this element was present in my work, it wasn't big enough.  This is what inspired me to enroll in graduate school at CSU East Bay in Online Teaching and Learning. 

It was near the end of the intensive 4-course certificate phase of my program that I had the moment.  While I had been excited by work in the past - a few service days with City Year Philadelphia; leading small group in the Child Development Lab - nothing compared to this.  I was in the midst of preparing learning units for my first online course, and my graduate project - Introduction to Raw Foods.  While engrossed in my work, I started to feel really excited.  Like, my nervous system was majorly reacting here.  Everything involved in what I was doing was so thrilling, and it all felt so right.  My brain felt as if it was screaming Yes!! This is it Allisun!  This is the work you are meant for, because it is so much more than that word - work. 

So, what are the elements at play in this 'work' that got me so fired up, and continue to do so until this day?  Learning theory.  Cognitive neuroscience.  Constructivism (was so prepared for this thanks to my Child Dev'l profs).  Social learning and collaboration tools.  The act of producing something for others that didn't exist before.  Researching articles, videos, podcasts.  Being connected to changing Education - this appeals to my radical edupunk/Sudbury sensibilities.  Change and innovation - love being in a field where there is always new information to be aquired.  And now, becoming ever more important to me - community.  Through Twitter, I've become connected with so many incredible people who are just as excited about the same things I am.  And even better? They're teaching me every day : )