I got to thinking the other day about some of the technology practices that are now a part of the way I work and think. It started the other day when I mistakenly closed my gmail tab instead of another one. My gmail tab is always the left-most tab and always the first thing I open after clicking on my browser. Without gmail open, I momentarily felt lost. Even though there are other tools to keep organized, over time my e-mail box has been a way for me to manage external communications and my own to-dos. This is just one of many of the technology /computing practices that I realized I have adopted over the years, starting I suppose with our old AT&T green screen. Here are some others:Command-X, Command-A, Command-C, Command-V, Tab, Tab, TabI am not one of those people who get scared when my mouse isn't working, which often happens to our battery operated mac mouse. From a young age, first on a PC and eventually on a Mac, I quickly learned all of the shortcut keys needed to navigate any operating system. I am perhaps more artful with the four direction keys and the command key than I am with the mouse or my own finger because I've internalized these buttons. Date_DocName_versionnumberMy old team can probably provide stories for my obsession with appropriately naming documents. However, this is the way I kept organized. I used to get so irate when I would get a document that said something like "presentation1" or "mathhs." Those aren't document names! How are you supposed to find that in three months. My rule is the date, the document name which has to be descriptive and the version number. This became particularly important in an environment where everything gets checked, rechecked and checked again. To allay confusion and frustration, this was (and still is) my mantra for naming documents. It also speaks to my philosophy around contextualization. You need to provide people with some sense of what they're looking at, otherwise, it's just noise.Ctrl-SI remember my sister telling me when she was maybe in 9th grade or so, that she had typed up an entire paper, only to lose the entire document. She stayed up the rest of the night redoing the assignment.Somewhere between that an my own similar debacles in college, grad school and the workplace, I've become an obsessive saver. Even though auto-save is now a key feature in Microsoft Office, in online blogging platforms and other other tools, I still save. I make sure I know where it is saved and that I, myself initiated the save. I probably hit "ctrl-S" or "command-S" every 3-5 minutes while working on a document automatically.QWERTYI know the qwerty keyboard. I memorized it at 11 thanks to a required typing elective in 6th grade. I got better by typing the words I heard in conversation out with my fingers. I was determined to become a fast typer, and glad I persevered - I just did a typing test and I did 91 WPM. Makes writing e-mails that much less of a chore!Sub-folder, Sub-folder, Sub-folder...Just as I can't stand clutter in my closet, I can't stand it in my folders, so like many, I practice the art of "sub-foldering." It saves me time and angst. Sure, your content is nested within some filepath like Admin>Taxes>2011, but, the effort on the front end of creating these folders is well worth it when you can find your taxes in seconds! A related practice, is saving downloads from websites, e-mail, etc. into the folders by right clicking and opting to "Save as" into a specific folder, versus keeping everything in my Downloads folder.So why did I mention these? Well first, I am by no means under the illusion that these are the best practices or that others don't do these things and more. However, I can say with full confidence that these practices and others I've adopted over time allow me to use my computer more efficiently and focus my time on creating. You could even argue that what I've described are a set of non-traditional technology literacy practices that I've continued to tweak since I began using my dad's AT&T Green Screen. The real reason for this exploration is that I spent the last few months with middle school students at a "tech" focused school whose technology practices I've had a chance to observe. Through class assignments, they have mastered programs like iMovie, PowerPoint and MS Word as well as a whole host of educational video games. On the flip side, I've seen some of my students struggle with simple things like where a file goes when they download it from e-mail because the file structure hasn't been explicitly explained to them. Exposure and practice has helped them to learn the use of very technical tools, but occasionally it doesn't seem that it provides the conceptual understanding. So where does that come from?Is it more time with resources? My thought is that some of these things need to be taught, be it some of the "soft" tech practices and more concrete ones like how files and data get stored.I'm curious to know if anyone out there agrees, disagrees or has thoughts about things they've observed with their own students or even themselves.