My Story of Lifelong Learning

_{My Story of}
_{Lifelong Learning}

_{Leza Grundy Ashley Liao Karen Soldatic Liam Magee}

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_{I love using technology and I have always wanted to learn more about it.}

_{I bought a laptop for myself during the COVID lockdown in 2020. It was my first personal laptop.}_{I thought about buying a laptop before the COVID lockdowns but didn’t. For many years, I thought I didn’t need to have a personal computer because I could use a shared one at my day service. Also, there were many different laptops to choose from and I didn’t know which one would be easy to use.}

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_{However, during the COVID lockdowns, I couldn’t attend activities in person. Online meetings became the only way to participate in programs. So, the house staff helped me decide on which laptop would work well for me and advised which one was of great quality. They helped me set up my laptop. So now I can use Google, YouTube, email and play computer games. I love my laptop because it’s easy to use.}

_{Since then, I have been able to look up clips of interest on YouTube and watch them on my own. Having a laptop makes things much easier and gives me privacy. Before COVID, I mainly watched YouTube videos on the TV in the living room. Myself, my four housemates and staff at home shared the TV. I watched whatever was on the TV. Now I can control what I watch because of my personal laptop. I enjoy searching YouTube for videos. It has so many video recommendations for me.}

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_{One day, I typed in Justin Bieber on YouTube to watch his music videos. After that, I am always seeing Justin Bieber's music videos on my YouTube front page. I don’t need to search for them again, they just appear. There are many new songs by him that I didn’t know before. YouTube also recommends many other videos to me. And I like most of them.}

_{I still don’t know why YouTube seems to know what I like. But I have learnt that it’s because of AI. What is AI again? I still don’t know. But I was told that AI is like a very smart robot. Youtube is amazing and brings me so much fun. That’s not all, sometimes, I show my laptop screen to my housemates and watch videos I like together. I feel so happy to share it as they all love the videos I show them.}

_{I love using the search bar on YouTube to find music. But searching videos on YouTube is more tricky than picking music from the auto recommendations. Sometimes, it brings up the wrong ones. For example, I once searched “Let it Snow”, it showed me the version I didn’t want.}

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_{When I was on Facebook, there were people I didn’t know who sent me photos and chatted with me via Messenger. In the beginning, I talked to them because I was confused. I didn’t know who they were and why they messaged me. But later I found out that they might be hackers. I deleted these things by myself and didn’t want to ask for help from any staff. I was scared. They might ask for my phone number next, and my home address. I deleted my accounts and I don’t need to deal with them again.}

_{I just do not feel comfortable having these personal things associated with technology. I don’t share my mobile number, I don’t share my email address and I have deleted my Facebook and Messenger accounts. Like the incident at Optus, that’s so scary. I am worried about using my email, people might hack my email. If I get hacked, personal details on the computer will be leaked. I share my email with the only disability service I am in. Because I know who they are and I trust them.}