HW#3.6 Wednesday's encounters with Technology

Gosh, this daily blogging is really leaving me weary. Having to think all day about it, and then make the time for it. I wonder what it feels like to be a columnist at a major news publication for decades. {Does it pay well?}

This got me thinking about the parallel between a modern technology (Blogging) and a much older one (Pencil). My 9-yr old son is still learning to write. He keeps his written work rather short. One reason that I can see is that he tires quickly. He's holding his pencil too tight. He's pressing it down too hard. The small muscles of his hand are fatiguing.

Or like one first learns to drive - I remember holding onto the steering wheel like it was some sort of life preserver.

How long before I don't feel 'tired' anymore? Does the world have to be subjected to my struggle?

[Rant]
On a different note, reading other classmate blogs and twitter posts, I find one thing that seems to bother many of us is the number of different logins and sources of information we need to keep track of daily. It might feel natural to today's high school and college students (still have to ask them), but it certainly does not to me. My own feeling is that they just accept it as the cost of doing business and don't think much of changing it, while I feel that it is pretty dumb.

Sure I could devote half of next Saturday to figuring out how to aggregate all these onto one page, but who wants to try since success is far from certain.

Here's a quick summary of the webpages or applications I have to check in at least once a day. Some of them I have to have open for large chunks of the day. Each of these has its own associated login, password, and associated headaches. And I don't even use IM. And I am not counting anything to do with my personal life (kids' school, affinity groups, alumni groups, etc.)

• Outlook (or equivalent for 2 primary email accounts)

• Twitter

• Facebook (self and 2 groups)

• Technology and Education (on PBWorks)

• Adolescent Development (on UW Catalyst Tools*)

• College of Education (bb.com)

*fortunately the landing page for the university has a link to Catalyst Tools. But they don't provide functionality for adding your own links. Or do they?
[/Rant]

You know, I should take this rant back. I needed to look up some financial information for a form, and ended up logging into 3 bank accounts, one mortgage account, 2 investment accounts, and I did not even go anywhere near the 6 different people we have retirement accounts with. And I did not grumble one bit! I guess because they are managing my money and so I see it as a service. But then I don't do this more than a couple of times a year. Not every day.