personal technology:Kindle 2 is too two to ignore???

I'm loving it!

OK, so I'm the book woman . . . Every gift to a family member has "a book" at the top of the guesswhatitis response list. The youngest grandbaby is vocal about her expectation that I arrive on her doorstep with books in my bag, every time, without fail. The second oldest said to me, just before Christmas, "Nonny, you won't believe this but there's this book I want . . ."

A Kindle was on my Christmas list but not under the tree. My children laughed at me. How could I--the catalyst for their own paper and ink book addictions, the very reason none of us has bookshelves enough, ever--want to read on a technothingamabob? a Kindle?

They were right. That part of who I am is imprinted in indelible inks on the pages where they keep their mother's perpetual profile. But some things change. Even mothers change. Even mothers old enough to be comfortably set in their ways change.

I ordered my own Kindle the day I discovered that generation 2 had arrived. I figured, backordered as it had been and still was, my Kindle would arrive with spring, or later. I was wrong. It arrived last week.

At the moment, the Kindle is charging--for the third time. I've bought three books, finished reading The Graveyard Book, am now somewhere in chapter 3 of By a Slow River (have ordered the print version too, but in the original French :).

Of all the personal technology that has come my way in this last year or years, this was the most natural transition from old ways to new.

It could be that being a book woman transcends physical form and substance.

It could be that being a book woman is all about having access--anywhere, anytime, any book--at my fingertips.

Could it be that both the book and the woman understand that change is the flip side of survive?

Or . . . could it be that, together, we're saving a tree or two or three???

a personal technology question

tech·nol·o·gy

1.
the branch of knowledge that deals with the creation and use of technical means and their interrelation with life, society, and the environment, drawing upon such subjects as industrial arts, engineering, applied science, and pure science.
technology. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Retrieved October 08, 2008, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/technology

OK, now that we know what technology really means, here's my question.

On my front porch this afternoon stood a tall carton, 50+ pounds of content, a white toddler sleigh bed with drawer from Dream on Me, Inc. Unassembled, of course . . . Are the simple tools I'll use to assemble the bed (and to disassemble the crib and mobile and . . .) this weekend still considered technology?

One more turn in the road of life . . . and decidedly a personal one. . .

footnote from Christmas 2008: a bed for Cassie

personal technology: the phone

The phone is my technological weak link. I love, love, love connecting via email (maybe because writing is my therapy of choice) but seem unable to cultivate a dependency on the extra ear appendage . . . Friends, colleagues, family--all know that to leave voicemail on my cell means I may get it a week or two later. Voicemail on the unlisted landline? I do honestly mean to check that daily but slip up at times there too. And don't you call me at work! Blinking message lights are in my blind spot somehow . . . Even my car has its own hands-free number now, but do you think I give that information out? I think I emailed the number to family members but they, above all others, know that I don't drive and talk!

About six months ago, I came home to a line in use message on my answering machine. Now, honestly, who would be using my line when no one was home? Every line in the house was DOA. I faithfully followed the disconnect/reconnect advice to no avail. Then, magically, just before bedtime, a dial tone . . . The next morning, of course, the technician came out, checked the line outside, and said NOT US!!! and that problem I'd had must be interference somewhere inside the house . . . As if I haven't paid for years and years for that to be their problem too . . .

That was the first time, repeated at least half a dozen times, same scenario. My son-in-law said it sounded as though there was a short in the line outside somewhere. I finally figured out how to talk to a real person in this automated scheduling world. If you call in a repair request and then call back immediately to check on the status of that repair request, guess what??? The lady I spoke to a couple of weeks was helpful. She suggested I use the outside jack to check the line while the dial tone was still AWOL. I did. No dial tone. She agreed the problem must be external and said this would be handled the next day--when I received yet another of those calls that said NOT US!!! and that problem I'd had must be interference somewhere inside the house . . .

When it happened again on Monday (what did we ever do before cell phones?), I decided that being nice (I usually am) wasn't working. I threatened, after doing the talk-to-a-real-person number, to cut the landline cord. Ditch the service. (As if I would when my home alarm system--yet another personal technology story--depends on that . . .) Three messages on my cell phone when I checked it this morning (five days later). The first two said NOT US!!! and that problem I'd had must be interference somewhere inside the house . . . The third said . . .

We found the problem.

We fixed it.

which is webdings for

we found the problem,

and we fixed it!

what became of the inquiry

I didn't know what I didn't know.
It's that simple.

I figure it will take this year and more to bring my 1980s-90s digital settler self into the 21st century.

So I exchanged my public inquiry focus to something I can do, in part, in my sleep: the impact of summer reading and, the flip side, what impacts the summer reading experience.

My inquiry into digeracy (I want to be one of the digerati in my next life)--newly freed of APA-formatted review of the literature due in December and planning the study (due in writing in April, presented in May) before embarking on the quest (like when have I ever done anything in someone else's prescribed sequence?)--has taken on a life of its own! Co-teaching a technology course (what a wonderfully inquiring group of adult learners this class is!) has given me the purpose I needed (and the excuse) to delve into new technologies I could only namedrop a few weeks ago.

So I may blog about those experiences here--and the professional readings (yes, I'm doing that with a passion) too. A travel log of sorts . . .

This week's celebration . . . Did you know that PowerPoint presentations can be saved as a series of pictures? Which means digital story telling (mastering [I thought] Photo Story was last year's triumph ) can indeed require some digital story reading ;-) Can't wait to play with that!

More to come . . .

personal technology update 1: the car

I finally did use that rear window wiper one dewy morning last week--without reverting to the print manual. Just punched a button with a promising symbol and got lucky! But it's the old technology that has me puzzled.

Thanks to emerging technologies, I get car diagnostics via email every month. Each month, noticing the tires had lost yet another psi, I've resolved to find or buy a tire gauge and maybe replace my ancient tire pump.

A couple of weeks ago, one of those dashboard lights came on and stayed on for a while before giving up on my paying appropriate attention. I was paying attention. After two days in the depths of the manual, I learned the universal (?) symbol for low tire pressure--which I will remember more for its location on the dash of this car than I will for its shape (so much for the universal concept :-/ ).

Last weekend my son, with his also ancient pump (but it did have a gauge!), helped me get the tires back up to standard--or so we thought. The monthly diagnostics, received on a Thursday, look not unlike last Saturday's readings. Delayed email? Leaky valve stems?

So I've done some upgrading. Tomorrow my 3K-miles-driven all-but-new car goes in for its first factory recall service--a possible power steering fluid leak which would, by the way, explain the way it complains when I back out of the driveway and head out in the mornings . . . With the price of gas, there's much to be said for one-stop shopping. I added getting the tires checked out to my personal technology recall list for tomorrow. I scheduled both appointments online . . .

BTW, I do now own a high-tech tire gauge that can be programmed to remember different settings for front and rear tires--serious technological overkill since 30 psi all around is easy enough for my brain to hold onto for now (kind of like the home thermostat I've never programmed beyond the 68-degree heating and 78-degree cooling absolutes). The new pump--a leaner and meaner version (but hopefully with some ooomph!)--also has a gauge. Both tire gauge and pump are still in the box/shrinkwrap/house . . .

Guess I should be grateful for the 3-month break from automotive repair waiting rooms. . . This one has popcorn (can't eat any until my current dental adventure is finished [hoping for Thanksgiving . . .]) and wi-fi (but I'm opting to spend my time with something of substance, of paper and ink).

In some, maybe many, ways, I'm a digital settler. It's good for the resume, for job security, for exercising the brain. But on my own time? Very much the immigrant, delighting in my native language and culture in the quiet spaces I call home.

Honoring UAF93 . . .

Click on the link above . . .

dO i REALLY WANT TO wiki ?

Create simple web pages
that groups, friends, & families can edit together. . .

I used to think that a wiki was an online encyclopedia that anyone could contribute to. I used to think that all I needed to know about a wiki was to be careful whom (which is, by the way, “a dialectical difference” we older language arts folks still use from time to time) I told that I actually consulted wikipedia out of desperation when I had burning questions other sources couldn’t satisfy. I guess that was a bit like seeing maybe just one side of one tree and not the whole forest?

So what is a wiki? The quote above from http://www.wikispaces.com/ seems to be a place to begin my understanding, my thinking.

But I’m an inquirer through and through, so now I want to know all of this and more.

• Simple compared to what and for whom? (I’ve got to be able to explain—no, teach—this to a group of teachers five days from now.)
  
• If a wiki is a web page, why not just stick to my school web page (School World) or my personal blog (Google’s blogspot)? Why do I need another site, another something else to keep up with? Why would teachers need to be wiki-wise?
  
• OK, maybe the groups, friends, and families can edit together . . . answers my last question? Or maybe not. . . We’ve just begun to set up a summer reading school web page that at least seven of us will be able to edit/monitor, sharing one username and password. I’ve invited my children and the children they married to contribute to my personal blog. Two of them have; the others just lurk. . .
  

I read somewhere—in more than one place, I think—that wikis are democratic. They are in the sense that we all have equal rights to share our thinking in the same space and even to intrude on each other’s thinking via editing something we didn’t post. The anonymity of the process—the casual reader certainly won’t know who wrote what, will he?—reminds me of the anonymity of the voting booth.

So here are my new questions.

• Are wikis about interdependence in lieu of independence?
  
• Are wikis about collaboration in lieu of competition?
  
• Will all voices be heard—is there no way to know?—or will lurking be participation enough?

I guess I should ask whether using wikis as an instructional tools matters at all. But, you know, if I didn’t suspect that it might matter a lot, I wouldn’t have taken you, or even me, on this journey of thought. . .

Your thoughts???