Happy New Year Bloggers!

My telephone and printer never once made me feel more human. Not having them has never prevented me from going outside, reading a book, gardening, calling Great-Grandma on my cell phone or sending Christmas cards.

It HAS saved me $30 a month in telephone company charges, and who knows how much on ink jet printers and their ink cartidges- which by the way is more expensive per ounce than the finest champagne in all the world. That would buy a lot of board games, books and hockey pucks.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
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Technology is a word with origins in the Greek word technologia (τεχνολογία), techne (τέχνη) “craft” and logia (λογία) “saying.” It is a broad term dealing with the use and knowledge of humanity’s tools and crafts.
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Paper is “stuff”. Pencils, ink, harness, plow, wheels and thread are “stuff”. Printers and telephones are “stuff”. Technology is what we do with the “stuff”. “Stuff” is rarely the issue.

One of my pet peeves is the linking of “stuff” to emotion. Some people want to hold onto old “stuff” because it feels comfortable to them. Others want to get rid of the old “stuff” and replace it with latest “stuff” because it is shiny and makes them feel emotionally better in some way. As educators I feel like it is our responsibility to sit in the middle and do the most to benefit teachers and kids with the most efficient “stuff” we can get our hands on.

And now I understand what I missed earlier. I forgot that when we read blog posts we react to things that touch our own emotions. other wise we would just sit on our hands and move along. “K” and “MrChristie” read something here that sparked them to react. I didn’t understand what they were getting at, which sparked me to react. Our ideas and spark points may be different, but we all shared our feelings here on this page.

That feels pretty human to me!

Chris O’Neal

The only hitch in our giddy-up is for occasional Government (tax) paperwork that has to be printed. They have pdf forms that we fill out, then print at work the next day. I probably print less than 25 pieces of paper per year for personal use. A bonus is that all of our important docs are reachable online. If fire, flood or tornado strikes our home, we don’t have to start from scratch.

One set of Grandparents is web-able and checks our Flickr photos to see the Grandchild, the other set is pleased as punch a few times a year when we print photos out of iPhoto and they miraculously deliver straight to their home. We looked into buying them a digital photo frame a while back, but they have no internet connection, and live far enough in the sticks that it would be a long distance phone call to update it once a day.

I’ve been trying to keep the same mentality at work. Whenever I make tutorial or course handouts, I go ahead and make the full length razzle-dazzle version and place a pdf of that on the server. Then I delete all but the barest of essential take-away data and put that on a single page with directions on where to go online to find the full version. That way if they want it, it is there for them. If they don’t want it bad enough to go get it, we just saved on printing costs. (I wish I could say it was because I am mindful of the environment, but it is really to save printing costs.)

Anyway – you are correct, a wireless, paperless life is possible!

There’re two in my garage, just in case I need one. I’m not in a hurry to get them set up, though.