Techno's BEST of times and WORST of times:

= my feelings on technology.
I have to admit it: I'm in a dysfunctional love-hate relationship with technology. I'd ask for a cure, but believe I'd be better off with some one -stop fix-it pill, or so society tells me (a pill for all cures). I'll leave the lovin' for last , so will start with what the worst is.
WORST: When your computer stops working. We've all been there, from "the network's down" to "why won't this ___(fill in the blank)___" to "this is stupid" to "I can't insert" to "it's not doing what I want", etc. But how about this one: my home computer won't even power up. I broke it. Badly. Can't even turn it on to fix it. Or back it up. For six months (because I'm avoiding the confrontation of dealing with broken technology), it has made a spectacular paper weight. I find I have many of those now in life. See my home laptop's battery and power supply no longer function; theory is that the motherboard needs some soldering or replacement. I killed my mother(board), how wrong is that? And I have to mail it out to Texas with all my data for an exorbitant fee for a couple of weeks. It is the worst time ever when you can't even turn your computer on, and fixing it is just plain scary.
BEST: Karen Clindaniel's in-district OneNote Class. I took Palatine's Media specialist, Elizabeth Broemmelsiek's OneNote class this past summer. She was spectacular for introducing some tablet features, adapting to the needs of the class, and sharing her OneNote applications and how-to's. Karen takes OneNote further with applications in the classroom. I learned to love OneNote over the summer as my personal assistant, and now Karen is teaching how radically OneNote can affect my teaching. There's the organizational stand point, which is divine. I just need the time to create the notebooks for, well, everything. I have my club, team, classes, PLC, and more on OneNote. It is saving my life with retaining simple data that I used to keep, sometimes, on slips of paper jammed into one folder that sometimes fell to the floor and spatter about as though a grenade hit it. AND to beat the worst case scenario I currently suffer, each is backed up automatically as it sync's to the H drive. No inaccessible data for me ever again (I can dream).
But really, Karen's presentation is perfect for where I am at, and for many with me just beginning to truly explore the tablet as a tablet. Little "a-ha" and "wow" moments float about the room each class evening. And with time to work, and use her for problem solving and ideas, it's great. Soon(ish), I will have a complete notebook with all my materials properly organized for one course. Okay, maybe just close to complete; much of material sits in manila envelopes rather than on the computer, and while some of it can be made electronic, others can't. I have to scan them, and maybe I will. I know I plan to do so, but am locked by time constraints, which always seems to be the kicker when learning and using the new technology. It's as though, our profession now has a sixth prep for all teachers, one we have to take rather than teach, one that takes our time with the promise of giving time back.
See, now we're back to that dysfunctional relationship. It's a promise from technology that I have to trust to utilize, and I have trust issues. But with little leaps of faith and greater patience than any saint, I'm loving it!

Summer

Since it is summer, and I am a teacher and not collecting a pay check for anything for the first time since I was sixteen, I, of course, am sitting poolside each and every day beneath a white, wide-brimmed hat and reading Harlequin novels by the handful. While this may touch some truth, I, as a teacher, still find myself irrevocably succumbing to work.
This summer I took the two day course for OneNote, and sprung from there into attempting to establish some solid notebooks for course planning. The number or hours donated to learning the next, new technology always surprises me, as does the turn over of the next, new technology. OneNote really seems like an advantage and time saver, once learned and set-up; it is also intriguing in how it can be utilized in the classroom, as well. Now, if students only had access to the program on their own! The added benefit of the in-district course was that many of us were able to share "here's what I do" with the tablets. This is always invaluable time that we could certainly use much, much more of throughout our institute days: learning pods!
A few other technology tidbits this summer include: enticing teachers with whom I have summer contact to grab a tablet and learn/play with it, discussing training options, fielding email q's/ideas, sorting through optimal web design with the technology staff at Fremd (they are GREAT!), and tracking my email time. The email time froze my medulla oblongata (which eliminates breathing and such...): I discovered that WORK email WHEN I'M NOT IN ANY SESSION, over the summer, took between 1 - 1.5 hours each day. This only applied to when I checked my email daily. I strolled away from all computers for a week or so, and suffered partial blindness when I opened Lotus Notes upon my return to technology.
I suspect the email time warp is due to reading and re-reading for accuracy/tone/understanding taking longer than listening one time to a person speaking. Also, there is delay in conversing and discussing questions and ideas so we think more (more redundantly?) about the topic before responding; and do our response first mandate clicking to check something first? For time management, this lack of processing organization must cause more time loss than discussions that are in person.
Our schedules are constantly disturbed by email, not just in receipt or sending, but in our to-do list of the day. It's as though we are building a barn, and keep getting new plans and designs as we construct, not just for our one barn, but for new ones that must be started immediately. So, jump from task to task and barn to barn; we really struggle when our supplies for the one barn assigned to us run out due to the othe barn designs emailed to us. Lastly, it is obvious that there is much more communication due to email (a good effect), which clearly takes task time, and our composition of emails surely takes more time to compose, type, read over, edit, attach, and send, than a dialog in person. So, the question is then, which is easier, in long-term truth? Both, I believe, but more desgnated time for the additional technological tasks born new to teachers would alleviate stress and overwork, better enabling stronger teacher contributions over all.