Technology Penalty

In case you've never heard of it, a thing called a "technology penalty" exists in today's culture. It's a term referring to "the price you pay" for using technology when doing it the old-fashioned way is easier, quicker, or more efficient. For instance, some people use their phones or PDAs as a personal organizer, scheduling events on a hand-held electronic. Some people prefer to use calenders.

For me, using technology just to use technology is rarely an option. I always prefer to watch my TV offline - commercials are just part of the experience, and you're forced to stay put and not multi-task, giving you a real sense of enjoyment. The internet is great for getting a hold of someone, but if picking up the phone will make it happen faster, I'm going to dial that number instead of shooting an e-mail.

A recent advancement in technology that really makes me scratch my brain is ordering food online. I'm sorry, why is this needed? Sure, if you're inebriated, watching the virtual pizza get delivered to your house might be amusing, but do you really need resort to the internet to order take out? Calling a restaurant has got to drastically reduce the risk of your credit card being charged more than once - or of the information being stolen in the first place. Plus, you know your order is in, and not just assumed to be in, because the website forwards you to a "order placed!" window.

I'm trying to think of a way I use technology where it would be easier to forgo the wires, but I'm coming up short. Oh, I play Guitar Hero - should I maybe just be learning the real thing??

Twitter in the Second Grade

This week, I was assigned a few articles for reading and was asked to respond to one of them for my (sort of) weekly blogpost. If you'd like to follow along with the class, the article can be found here. Apparently, two second grade classes have been twittering back and forth across Maine: One class is located in Bangor, and the other is in Greene.

I don't mean to sound like a snob or anything... but the article reads more like a plug for twitter than an expose on the creative teaching some educators are doing. "There are lessons in grammar, spelling, math," the article says, but what exactly are these lessons?? I'd be really interested in hearing how a teacher conducts a math lesson through twitter, which you can only use 140 characters in a single update. Are they sharing links to math lessons? Doing multiple updates with single steps in each new "tweet"?

The teacher makes a valid point about teaching writing being hard. It is hard, and it is necessary to try a variety of ways to transfer these skills to students, because so much of communication is done through writing. I wish the reporter had said more about what kind of lessons are being taught using twitter. I'd be interested in adapting those lessons for a high school age. But as it is, I can't think of how I'd get my English classes online with this site... Maybe if their twitter was a place to record links they've found? But then, isn't that what a blog is for??

Hmm...