Randi D. Ward is a retired, 37 year veteran English teacher from Georgia, USA, and a published author. She was named “Entrepreneur of the Year 2014” in the Education Industry by Worldwide Who’s Who and was profiled in its 2015 calendar. Her other awards include being the 2014-15 VIP Woman of the Year by National Association of Professional Women, a 2015 Delegate of the International Leadership Women’s Association, a 2015 Top Female Executive, a 2014 Pinnacle Professional Member of Continental Who’s Who, and an elite member of Strathmore Worldwide Who’s Who. Her current projects in Africa are World Peace Forest (Africa) in Egypt and Africa Nomads Conservation in Kenya. She is an honorary president of World Peace Forest (Africa) and the USA Regional Director for Africa Nomads Conservation. Her book is entitled Because I Believed in Me (My Egyptian Fantasy Came True). Georgia, USA
So many of us now spend a large part of our days and our lives on the internet. Our jobs require us to use business programs, email addresses, and online business conference sites. Our schools use various sites on the internet as sources for learning new information and teaching new skills. You would think we would be tired of being online at the end of a busy work day or school day. However, Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Yahoo Messenger, LinkedIn, and all of the games now available to play online have now become essential to provide us with the social interaction or entertainment we desire. We can listen to music and radio shows, watch movies or TV shows, and read newspapers, magazines, and blogs online. We sadly never need to leave our homes in order to be connected with almost everything we wish to explore. Our world has drastically changed since that first day the internet was born. Even our language has been greatly affected. The creation of new words or terms has entered our vocabulary which either did not exist before computers or have acquired additional meanings and are now a normal part of our daily language.
One day a few months ago, out of curiosity I decided to make a list of these new words that have become a part of our technological world now. When the list was completed to my satisfaction, I became inspired to create my own unique way to explain them to those people who may not be completely familiar with the computer technology world today. Below is the result of my creative experience. Enjoy my poem entitled “Request Me Now!”
REQUEST ME NOW!
Request me now if you want to be a friend
Is a phrase we now often write and send
Write in your blog and open your email.
Order online to get an item on sale.
Reply to this message and open this link.
All of these technical words now make us think
How much communication has been transformed
Since the world of the internet has been formed.
We google and search for hours on a website
To find the information that is just right.
Log in, password, search engine, logout.
These things we must now know about.
A gopher, a worm, and a mouse
Used to be creatures around our house.
Cookies and spam used to be things that we ate
But now are often things we have learned to hate.
Chatting we used to do in person or on a phone.
Now we can do both of these totally alone.
We tweet and we voicemail and we text.
Who in the world knows what will be next.
Now our computers are the ones that get a virus
And need those special security systems just like us.
We block unwanted things with private settings and firewalls
And hope these will prevent those expensive technical repair calls.
We bookmark and save websites we think are real and virus free
And try to be the best and safest net searchers we can be.
We carefully post our daily messages on our personal timeline on Facebook,
And only make our homepage and profile visible for people we allow to look.
We video and voice chat on Skype and Yahoo each and every day,
But only with friends and people we know and trust in every way.
We try our best to utilize our modern technology for its best use
And hope and pray we will never receive improper or viral abuse.
So have fun with all the new apps and poke a friend or two.
Tweet your latest news and post a favorite photo of you.
Technology even if not always user friendly can still be lots of fun
And provide many hours of entertainment when your work day is done.
So insert your modem in that USB port and connect with your favorite browser now. It is fun to play around on the internet even you really do not know how.
Sit back in your favorite, comfy chair, relax, and enter the virtual world of the net.
Explore all of the online possibilities and see what amazing pleasure you can get.
