Ok, I can do nearly every basic Office feature on Google Docs now. I can use Gmail for all my email needs and Google Calendar for all my calendar needs as well. Do I still need Microsoft Office? The only reason I can see for not using Google Docs is the fact that all this is owned by Google, and while Google professes to “do no evil” it sure rolled over when it came to censorship in China. What user rights will they trample on next? Well, I think it is safe to say that Google is unlikely to trample on the rights of little old me. Still, the risk is out there. For documents in which I require more privacy, I could use Open Source tools, such as Open Office. It works remarkably well, and it is free free free. Microsoft Office is good – but is it good enough to justify its cost? For me, with my relatively simple needs, the answer is no.

I am an unabashed admirer of new technology gadgets. To me, these new gadgets represent the best of our American spirit – we see a problem, and we find a new and creative way to address it. I love all the fresh and sometimes bizarre attempts out there, even the crazy ones that don’t really work. What can I say, it makes me happy!

Finally, finally, I have acquired a new bit of technology that I have been craving for years now. It’s a new Roomba, the robotic vacuum cleaner! Now, before we start with the “nature abhors a vacuum” jokes, know that I hate vacuuming with nearly the same degree of passion that I hate leaf blowers and other such noisy everyday equipment. BUT, I have 4 cats and a large dog, and I live to be outdoors. That means regular vacuuming is an avoidable necessity in my house. Enter, the handy-dandy robot that buzzes around and gets all the grit, fur and dust that I’d otherwise be walking around on barefoot. Ew. Does it work perfectly? Not really, as I have to unstick it from something every 15 minutes or so, but it does a reasonably good job and frankly, it’s kind of fun to watch it scurry about on it’s strangely effective little algorithmic path. Bonus: The animals are all fascinated by it.

What does a Roomba have to do with educational technology? Maybe not much, other than providing me more free time and a better quality of life, which makes me a better educational technologist.

Does it float all boats in the world of education? I have noticed time and time again that once faculty begin using an online tool such as WebCT, they begin using all sorts of other technology resources in teaching and learning as well. It’s as though the WebCT platform finally matched the instructor threshold, and now those who were timid about stepping off the old train can now finally take some tentative steps into new territory. Not that the tool need be WebCT; it’s just the one that is conveniently available in my world. There’s something about this process that I kind of love – it’s a natural evolution by those who are most curious first and then followed by those they’ve told, it’s freely chosen by the faculty (well, free except for the part where we chose WebCT for them), it’s a creative choice in that faculty use it in whatever ways they can imagine, up to the limits of their knowledge of the software and of their student’s capabilities, and it’s a way to give faculty ownership of some of this. I think many faculty have felt that technology is foisted upon them from time to time, and this gives them some power over that rude intrusion. Some of the pressure comes from students, of course – this is the way we work and communicate now.

Much as I love multimedia and other forms of technology, I mourn just a little bit for the loss of the written word. It wasn’t the best code there ever was, but it was a good code and it served us well for a very long time. Books and animals were my chief comforts growing up, after all. We moved so often it was hard to develop an identity, keep a hobby or maintain relationships. Books kept me intellectually engaged and out of who-knows-what-all trouble, when I might have otherwise just wallowed in a teen-aged funk otherwise. Plus, books engage us deeply, for a long time, in a way that has a cognitive impact that technology sources don’t. Books, to me, are often almost like mini-relationships because they evoke such deep emotions and so much thought.

I read that older women are the chief purchasers of books these days. Men don’t read much and they don’t read fiction at all, it seems. What a pity for them that they can’t access the world we older women live in. They have sports and movies, and I suppose men enjoy things like working on cars, collecting Star Wars action figures and watching porn too, but these things are so fleeting and shallow to me. Anyway, the best movies come from books originally! It’s all about the story, and I never understand why we’d want to limit storytelling to just the existential world when the imaginary world holds so much more promise.

I never hear any faculty members say thank you to the administrators (in a collective way) during the early weeks of the fall semester, but they should. I see my colleagues working their tails off, forgoing all breaks, coming in on weekends, and putting in long hours under often trying circumstances. We keep it up under intense pressure, knowing that we could have a big impact on someone’s education, and knowing we won’t get the big money or kudos for all our efforts. Yet where would the faculty be without us? I can hardly imagine a life without email, the Internet, blogs or wikis, network storage, multimedia, or even just the word processors. Let’s not even go there on the lightbulb changes or classroom planning tasks. Without us admin types, only a few oddball faculty members would get these things going or understand their value in teaching and learning. They are experts in their fields, of course, not in educational technology. So, here’s a toast to you, my dedicated, hard-working colleagues! Thanks for making the projectors shine so brightly, for making the online databases hum, for making the network zip and all the other wonderful things you do!