Most of the time I love technology. I love the information it puts at my fingertips - I can't even tell you the number of things I Googled today. I love the way it connects us - I Skyped with my best friend who now lives in North Carolina today so that I could give her a tour of my new house. I love shopping at stores that aren't available in my area - I just ordered my daughter's Halloween costume from the Disney Store today; she's going to be Ariel. But, as Hobbs points out in chapter 1 of Digital and Media Literacy: Connecting Culture and Classroom, we have a love-hate relationship with technology.
Since I've talked about the love, I'm going to focus on the hate. I had booked one of my department's 3 COWs (computers on wheels) for my freshmen to use today so they could begin work on their literacy narratives. The plan was to do a prewriting exercise using GoogleDocs, share them with each other, comment on each others' work, and use an online graphic organizer to begin planning and structuring the formal piece. Let's just say that didn't happen. As Robert Burns tells us, "the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft aglay." Well, my plans certainly went "aglay" today. And do you want to know why? Someone forgot to plug the COW in on Friday, so all of the laptop batteries were dead. Kaput. Of course, I didn't realize it until I had distributed laptops to all of my students and they tried logging on. Then my hatred for technology became clear: I hate it when it doesn't work.
Truly, the only time I feel hatred for technology is when it doesn't work and my plans are foiled. If it works like it's supposed to (and like I want it to), then I'm blissfully in love. Too bad the object of my affections can only return my ardor if its battery is charged.
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