I am a reluctant blogger, ambivalent towards technology. Love it when it saves me time, love its' new and unexpected gifts, love the access to - well, absolutely unbelievable access to information and more of course. Hate it hate it hate it when it turns on me, sucks my time, draws me in and screws me over. The absolute worst? When people say: "No, this is incredibly simple and easy, you will love this." And then it is the opposite of simple-easy and next thing you know, hours of precious time are killed-wasted-gone-forever in this maddening pursuit of nothing. Facebook and the like I simply ignore. I love real faces and real books.

I am aware that you, Colin, must have heard all this before, must have an answer, must have an immediate shake of the head response, but yet I am compelled...

So: in the classroom - I would love a flippin overhead projector that could be plugged in and used instead of the one that sits in the corner gathering dust where my master teacher piles the lost-and-found. Forget sending a monkey through cyberspace to deliver a survey. Nice trick, but I really just want to show everyone a picture in class. Can't project from the computer yet either, by the way. Really would have liked to show that amazing panoramic view from the top of Everest I found online before the Freshmen began reading that selection from Into Thin Air (which by the way should be underlined not italicized but how do I do that here?) but yeah, not happening.

As such, I wish I had not missed the first meeting of EDU 4113, which set me back before I even began.

A few responses to meeting #2:

Google Docs is ok, I've used it with more success than confusion in the end. But Colin, for those e-mailers who drive you crazy not knowing when to "reply" and when to "reply all" - don't you think that many of these will only be worse off in a new, even-less-linear environment?

And then - I was the one who said "I REALLY don't want to open a Facebook account." And you said and many in class immediately, dismissively chimed in with agreement - you just do it and then delete it don't be silly it's nothing. So I did and I followed along but after you jetted out of there the account remained and guess what since I rushed through in order to keep up and not be silly and made up a password as I went and forgot it immediately I was not able to deactivate that account. Even with a generous and Facebook-savvy classmate helping me for quite a few minutes we were not able to find a workable path to re-set or be reminded of the password and without it we could not deactivate. Oh God did I have other things to do with that half-hour. Getting late and lessons to plan for the very next day and Nate and Olivia waiting at home hoping I'd be there in time to kiss goodnight and not to get overly dramatic but in the end I was not. But I do still have a Facebook account attached to my gmail account in the name of Bezus Bingbong.