My iPad and Me: An Introduction

Posted on: September 22, 2014 | By: Amanda Cassaday | Filed under: Instructional Technologies, Teaching & Learning

Hello! My name is Amanda, and I am freshman this year at Elon University. I’m excited to start this new chapter of my life. Read on to learn more about me!

To start off, I was born and raised in New Jersey, but not the Jersey Shore. As much as I wish I was from the shore, the closest beach to my house is actually an hour away. It’s still very close though, and I love having that there as somewhere fun to go for a little day trip.

My town is a small town that boast such celebrities as Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi of Jersey Shore fame, and Kevin Jonas of the Jonas Brothers. Even though they’re barely celebrities, it’s still exciting to see them around. In Florham Park, I spend my summers at the Florham Park Day Camp, working with about twenty girls who are going into the first grade. My favorite thing is working with these kids over the summer because we have so much fun and I get to be as goofy and silly as I want. I was also a cheerleading coach for the last four autumns in my town, which was such a blast because I got to combine my favorite things, cheerleading and playing with kids. These two activities helped me decide that when I grow up I want to be a teacher. I always loved  school, so it just seemed like the natural choice for me. Wanting to be a teacher is what led me to Elon University, bringing it full circle as to how where I come from brought me to where I am.

Some more interesting things about me are that my favorite foods are Fritos and pistachio ice cream, and that my favorite animal is a panda. My favorite show was How I Met Your Mother until it ended in the spring, so now it is Once Upon a Time. I love all things Disney as well, and my favorite movie is Tangled. Even though I’m eighteen and technically an adult, I still say that my favorite vacation spot is Disney World in Orlando, Florida. All of my favorite memories from my childhood were made with my family in Disney World, and they are definitely ones that I will cherish forever.

This is a picture of me in Disneyland back in 2012!

This is a picture of me in Disneyland back in 2012!

As far as technology is concerned, I’m definitely not the best. I’m not the worst, but on the spectrum I lie somewhere between your mother using an iPhone and that kid down the street who own every Apple product ever released ever.

I have an iPhone, a MacBook, a kindle, and now an iPad Air. I had a netbook when those were cool, but those never really caught on so I don’t really like to talk about it. I like to think that I’m tech savvy when it comes to my iPhone though. I have a bunch of apps and I know how to make phone calls (even though no one ever does) so I count that as pretty proficient in iPhoning. As far as my MacBook, I’m still getting the hang of that though because I just bought it about a month ago, but I don’t play video games so all I use it for is online shopping and occasionally homework. I know how to do those things very well on my MacBook so I’d say I’m pretty good at that too. 

The iPad, however, is a different story. Everyone keeps telling me that it’s just a bigger iPhone, which is kind of true but also kind of false. It has all the same apps, but they’re so much bigger and easier to use than on the iPhone.

The iPad feels more like a computer than the iPhone, although I’m sure it also has something to do with the fact that I have a keyboard attached to my iPad. Using it feels exactly like a touch screen computer, which is very convenient when using things like word processor on it. 

Prior to getting my iPad last Friday, I had never really used one before other than to have someone show me something or read an article in class. Having my own now and using it for a week makes me wish I had gotten one when they first came out. I feel like this could replace my MacBook. I’m still getting the hang of it, and I’m sure that after using it more and more I’ll become more comfortable with it. Although I must admit, I can totally see myself becoming one of those people that takes their iPad everywhere and only talks about how much they love their iPad all the time. It is a great piece of technology. Over the next year or so, I’m sure I’ll learn to not only be proficient in using the iPad, but I’ll get to know more about what apps are essential for making the most of this tablet, and also make my time in school just a little bit easier.

Amanda Cassaday

Amanda Cassaday is a freshman this year and is very excited to be working on the Writing With Thumbs project.

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