Entry #2

So this weekend I attended this big conference on technology and its impact on education. And the impression that the most powerful sessions I attended left me with was that if I wasn't blogging and wiki-ing and twittering and digitally audio-synchratically syncopating, then I wasn't doing my students justice because I wouldn't be equipping them for their world - a world that almost everyone is sure will include all of that techno-absurdity.

After doing the important things like checking my (physical) mail and holding my girl and poking about in the fridge, I found myself in front of the computer, signing up for Twitter accounts like I was Diddy and for RSS feeds I don't understand and I found myself trying to blog - a hobby I've brazenly mocked in others.

Why the heck did I do all of that? That's not me. Other people don't tell me how to think, and dudes at podiums getting paid thousands of dollars don't tell me how to teach.

(The general down in the trenches is the only one I've ever liked taking orders from)

In my opinion, texting is lame. Twitter users are, well, twits. Online diaries are pathetic attempts to publicly bare your private soul - like reading a deep breakup poem at opened mic night to impress some girl in the front row. Lame.

I tried. I tried signing up for accounts and linking them all into some aggregate feedlot and dragging orange icons into teal bubble backgrounds and I tried reading the online conference handouts on the presenters' pretentious blogs and I tried following faqs and online tutorials. And I hated every minute of it.

To me, messing with all that digi-mumbo jumbo isn't embarking on an exciting new journey in education. It didn't fill me with energy and wonder. It just pissed me off. It felt dumb and lame and forced. I'm techno-savvy, but I don't want to be techno-literate if it keeps me from enjoying my real life.

I like my life how it is - trying to stay away from screens and wires and trying to keep things face-to-face. And I'm growing as a teacher just fine out here in the none-digital world. Ask my students. Ask my girl. Ask my friends. Ask my fridge...just walk right up to it and ask it.

Go ahead.

Entry #1

I am uncertain about almost everything. At this moment I am especially uncertain about blogging.