bugsii

I spent the day doing laundry, packing and running some errands in preparation for our trip to Oregon tomorrow.  I’m really looking forward to it!

But, in the mean time, I’ve been collecting a little list of things I wanted to write about and they aren’t coming together like I thought they might, so here they are in list form… random tidbits:

1) Have you been watching the show, What Would You Do? on ABC?  I kind of like it, but I have a few complaints.  On the show, they set up these scenarios where someone needs help or intervention of some sort and then they see who will step up to help.  Then they act like the person that stepped up is the hero and those that didn’t are heartless jerks.  I object.  I’m the type to step up and yell at someone if they deserve it and everything, but some of the set ups on the show are so obviously fake sometimes people actually ask, “Is this real?”  For example, when they had a Muslim woman, blind person, Latino, gay couple, etc. try to order at a restaurant, the actor that played the racist/bigot/craphead was so over the top that I don’t know if I would have believed it was real.  See, the thing is, most hate is very subtle.  That’s why it’s been able to stick around so long.  Usually it’s something as simple as ignoring someone, or a snide look, or a joke between friends.  Full frontal racism/bigotry isn’t an everyday occurrence, so I don’t blame people for not really knowing what to think/do/say.  On the other hand, after the shock wore off, I really think I would go nuts on that actor.  And another thing, a bunch of the situations on the show could seriously put someone in danger if they intervene.  Like when there’s some domestic abuse going on in the park and people walk by.  Who knows what that guy is capable of?  I don’t know if I’d call the police (I hope I would), but you can’t blame someone for self-preservation.  I feel like, immediately following this show, 20/20 will come on and there will be a story about some well meaning woman who tried to help a homeless man and ended up in the dumpster.  And they’ll say, why would she have put herself in that situation?  And then John Quinones will jump out and say, well if she hadn’t she would have been a heartless jerk!

2) At work, I like to send people emails, even if they are a few cubes down or even just a thin cloth-covered cubicle wall away.  Why?  Since becoming more of a technophile, I’ve become fond of asynchronous communication.  That is, communication that doesn’t take place in real time.  I like having an email inbox that I can respond to when I have time, a good answer, or the energy to do it.  I do not like phone calls demanding an answer, one in which I often need to look up anyway.  Plus, I’m much more articulate when I can sit, think, and write out my response.  I like Facebook wall posts that you can choose when to respond to.  Sometimes, I feel like jumping right into the conversation, sometimes I like to walk away, but I like determining which of these I will choose.  I still like phone calls with family, but with friends, I kinda like text messages.  It gives me time to think.  It takes some immediacy out of the conversation.  And since I don’t carry my phone around with me in the house, it’s nice to be able to check it when I happen to look at it and respond when necessary.  When I think back to college, the days of AOL Instant Messenger (or AIM), and the 6 conversations I would hold simultaneously in 6 different boxes, each one blinking and waiting for a response, I break out in hives.  So much pressure.  I never turn chat on on facebook and AIM has slowly died.  I couldn’t be happier.  I like time to think and I think other people do to.  So that’s why at work, I send emails when I could just as easily poke my head into someone else’s cube or raise my voice just a bit.  I like to give them time.  Maybe they’re on the phone.  Maybe they’re in the middle of something.  Maybe they just don’t feel like dealing with my problem right at that second.  So, I send an email.

3) When I was in choir in 6th grade at St. Joe’s School, Mrs. Frey, the choir director told us that singing was praying twice.  I always liked that.  It seemed very efficient.  Plus, I liked to sing, so in my mind, it was like being rewarded for eating ice cream.  And I had a thought the other day as I wrote my blog.  It was one of the more mundane posts; one of the “first I did this, then this, then this, then this, the end!”  And I thought, what a bunch of crap I’m writing right now.  But, then I got to thinking, and I really think there’s some value in sitting down each night and documenting my life.  Not every day is profound, but as I review the day, I rethink much of what I did and sometimes I wonder why the heck I did that or what doing that says about me or means about the world.  And so, I’ve decided that writing (and blogging) is thinking twice and there ain’t nothing wrong with that.

4) I think I’ve discovered a learning prejudice.  So, I’ve been interviewing teachers about technology and there’s a general theme that comes out which is, technology is good if students are using it to learn.  It must help students learn or it should not be in school.  And, as of right now, cell phones and Facebook are getting the haterade because kids aren’t learning.  But really, this isn’t about learning at all because surely, kids are learning.  They just aren’t learning what we want them to learn.  They may not be learning our Academic Content Standards, but they are learning how to communicate, how to use technology, how to be a 7th grader, how to be a girl (or boy), how to have friends, how to make enemies, how to talk online, how this effects in person communication, etc.  They are certainly learning; they just aren’t learning what we want them to learn.  So, what’s so much better about learning the Academic Content Standards anyway?  It sounds like we might be prejudiced toward this kind of content learning.  Why not allow kids to learn what they want to learn?  What are we afraid of happening if students don’t learn the 3 types of rocks?  Or, maybe we aren’t giving them enough credit… maybe they would try to learn the three types of rocks (although… okay, no they wouldn’t).  Who knows?  I’m not saying kids don’t need guidance; they do.  But when guidance starts to look more like control, and starts to inhibit the ability to think outside the box of standards-based education, I wonder if we should insist that these tools are used for a certain kind of learning only.  What else could be possible with a little more freedom?

The end.

This post is going to be like the OG blogs where geeks would post links to cool stuff on the internet.  There have been some things tech-related that I’ve been thinking about and wanting to share, and since it is 11pm and I need to go to work tomorrow, here they are in list form:

1) I heard this story on NPR about how there’s this whole new business where websites are tracking your information online and selling it to other companies who use it to figure out your habits and what you want to buy.  This doesn’t really freak me out.  I know it’s going on, but I never pay attention to ads on websites (at least I think I don’t).  In the story, the woman being interviewed talked about how she was being followed around by a pair of shoes that she had put in her “cart” online, but then had never bought.  The ad for the shoes would show up on almost every page she browsed.  When I heard it I thought, yeah right lady, but then, because of this story, I started looking at the ads more closely and I realized that I’m being followed by a package tour to India!  It’s everywhere!  And I think it’s working…

2) A local school district is lifting its ban on cell phones. I think this is interesting because I think it’s going to happen sooner or later anyway.  Cell phones are part of us now, aren’t they?  I would be sort of ticked if I could never even check my phone during the day at work.  I’m not on it all the time, but if someone in my family needs me, I know.  Plus, when I’m in school and don’t have my laptop, I use my wikipanion app to look up words and theorists I don’t know and take (very short) notes.  Banning cell phones is not the solution.  I use it appropriately and kids can use it appropriately.  Maybe we should teach them?  Ah ha!  It’s coming people.  Cry a river, build a bridge, and get over it (a good quote from one of Ms. Ray’s former students).

3) A note on hulu and other ways we don’t watch TV in real time (or on the right day) ever any more… I mean really, how many people watch a show the day it’s on, at the right time, and sit through all the commercials?  If you still do this, I feel sad for you being subjected to the tyrannical television timetables and those sneaky brain-washing commercials!  Get a DVR asap or get on the interwebs and watch as you please.  Or don’t watch, but don’t watch in real time for goodness sakes.  Anyway, long story short, I’m never worried about seeing a show at the right time, and many of the shows I watch involve people being voted off (don’t judge) and when people mention the results to me or POST IT TO FACEBOOK, it kind of drives me bonkers (but it’s not just people, the results are online, mentioned on other shows, etc.).  Here’s my point, watching shows whenever you want, good; everyone in America being on different television schedules, problematic.  What will we ever do to solve this very important problem?  It might be more important than peace in the Middle East.  Oh, what a world.

4) Okay, this one’s less petty, but maybe just as ridiculous.  Steganography!  What’s that you say?  No, it’s not how to draw a stegosaurus.  It’s this thing people are learning to do to manage multiple and possibly conflicting audiences online.  For example, now that kids are on facebook and they are friending their friends, classmates, and… their mom, they are figuring out ways of saying something what they want to say without freaking their mom out, but in a way that their friends (maybe just their close friends) will understand what’s really going on.  danah boyd explains it much better here.  I think it’s supercool.  Here’s her explanation of the word steganography:

Steganography is an ancient technique where people hide messages in plain sight. Invisible ink, tattoos under hair on messengers, and messages embedded in pictures are just a few ways in which steganography is employed.

Doesn’t it make you want to write a mystery novel right now?  Yes.

Okay, I’m loopy.  Must sleep!

I feel really lucky that Ohio State brings in some pretty incredible speakers.  I’ve seen bell hooks, danah boyd, and at the end of this month Maya Angelou will be here!  Today, I saw danah boyd.  There was conference at the law school on youth and social media.  It was a free conference and I made sure to register right away because the topic is so relevant to me and my research.

On a side note, I got to the law school and looked around a little.  The place is gleaming, with a grand staircase and fancy carpet and a coat rack and FREE Panera bagels (and later I found out FREE lunch)!  They have their own library and their own auditorium.  And everyone in the audience besides me and one of my professors was in suits and had really nice haircuts (boy was I mad at myself for waking up late, shoving my hair into an unkempt braid and wearing some jeans that were saggy in the butt).  If you could only contrast this with Ramseyer Hall (that houses the school of education), you might be as surprised as I was.  Or maybe not.  It is the Law School after all.  No one goes there to work with kids in a low paying job for the greater good.  People go there to make a fat paycheck.  And the building and everyone in it conveyed that very clearly.  Ramseyer is one of the older buildings on campus, lined with lockers from the time it was a lab school back in the 50s.  The rooms are oddly shaped after years of being chopped up over and over again into different configurations.  Some have drop ceilings, some have high ceilings, some have projectors hanging from the plaster.  They just painted the walls (for the hundredth time I’m sure) to cover up the peeling paint.  The building is nice in its own way, it has a charming feel, some decorative carvings and heavy banisters, but compared to the law school, it’s practically condemned.  This all says something about the prestige of these two fields.  Just sayin.

Anyway, back to the conference.  So, I get there a little early, and danah is prepping for her speech.  She’s walking around a bit and I make sure I go say hello to her.  It was a brief exchange, but she knew who I was and she was friendly.  She seemed a little nervous too, which always surprises me.  I don’t know why I have a hard time understanding that even well-established people get nervous before talking to crowds.  For some reason I think that if I really knew what I was talking about, that I wouldn’t get nervous, and since I only sort of half know what I’m talking about, I’m always nervous.  But, I’ve been thinking about this for awhile now, about what it means to be a good speaker.  Because, you know how when you go to see some speaker and it’s this guy that’s a real schmoozy slickster and the words roll right off of his tongue and he makes difficult things seem palatable and believable?  Well, he would be considered a “good speaker”, right?  And I HATE those types of speakers because I feel like they are insulting the intelligence of the whole audience by believing that the audience wouldn’t doubt a thing they have to say.  I much prefer a bumbling professor that circles round and round an argument, thinks about things on the fly, and considers that the audience is also thinking about the topic.  Even though they may appear to be a “bad” speaker, they aren’t selling anything.  I mean, they are in a way, but they are selling it with a much more complex argument, one that won’t just be consumed by the audience like a bag of doritos (mindlessly).  Not all professors are like that of course, and not all slicksters are really that slick, but you see what I mean.  The reason this helps me a little is because I get nervous before I speak.  I get nervous because I know that I don’t know everything about the topic I am going to present, but what I need to realize is that NO ONE does.  So, any slick speaker has essentially become uncritical of the stuff that’s coming out of his mouth.  I would rather have someone nervous and conscious of their own deficiencies than someone that has forgotten that they have deficiencies.  In academic research, there’s no real truth to be told, there are only angles of the truth, partial truths, fictions.  So, given that, I consider myself a darn good speaker.

danah was a good speaker in both senses.  She was confident, but also tried to show several sides of the argument.  She seemed less nervous as the presentation went on, and she shared some very interesting research.  She talked pretty fast and you could tell that she just had so much to share and one hour could never be enough.  You could also really see how passionate she is about her work.  I hope I can do this someday like that.  Another thing I loved about her was that she had her hair in a folded bun thing, nothing fancy.  She had a big fuzzy sweater on and big crazy earrings.  She also used a mix of casual and academic language, which was cool.  I want to be comfortable and confident enough that I can dress and speak more casually for conference presentations.  Wearing jeans and speaking casually does not make you dumb, so why do I play that game?  I hate wearing suits.  Don’t make me wear a suit.  Oh, and danah even had a mac with stickers all over it (what makes that especially funny is that she works for Microsoft right now).  I wonder what the law students thought about her.

Yesterday was a busy day.  I worked in the morning, read in the afternoon and then had class in the evening.  Only three people showed up to the evening class (out of nine) because of the weather.  I guess I should have skipped it, but one of my pals had to lead the discussion and I didn’t want to leave her high and dry (although I wish I could have stayed dry instead of having to clean off my car for the third time in three days).  Ah well, it was an interesting class and I’m glad I went.

Today, I ran in the morning, did lots more work, and then went to my Ed Tech seminar.  Right now, I’m waiting for my course to begin at five, but I thought I might take a minute to tell you about Google Buzz.  It’s like a new twitter, but from Google.  It’s integrated into your email and it can pull in facebook and twitter updates.  Sounds cool, but HOLY CRAP I do not need one more piece of social networking to keep track of.  I’m still annoyed about Google Wave.  Google, it’s time to take a break.  In earlier days, I just would have ignored something like this or maybe put it on the back burner with a clear conscious, but see, now this is my field, and I have to at least know what’s out there, right?  I have to at least say, I saw it, but I don’t really like it or something.  So, at the same time that it’s exciting to be in a field like educational technology where things are happening pretty fast, it’s also exhausting.  I just want to be in a rut for like a month.  A good old-fashioned rut.  Darn you Google and your innovations!

I got the super secret, super elite Google Wave invite from my former boss the other day (Thanks, Eric!), but I had to wait until today to try it out since I was busy finishing up my exams.  I’m not really sure how I feel about it yet, but I know I need more contacts (which is sort of impossible because of the whole “invite” business).  Google Wave is supposed to be the next generation of email and I guess it works more like a chat/conversation (?).  I tried to start a “wave” with Dan and Eric (my only contacts) so that I could figure out how it works a little better, but later I asked Dan if he got my wave and he didn’t because it doesn’t email him (which I guess would be beside the point).  He had to go to his wave account to see my wave.  Hmm.  I don’t know about this.

It reminds me of the day way back in ‘94 when we got AOL and my dad was all excited about my having a screen name and he showed me how chat worked.  And I was all excited and signed into chat and… had no one to talk to.  I imagined that it would be really cool, if my friends also had computers and AOL, but not that many people did at that point.  I mean, imagine Facebook with only a few friends.  Not fun.  Eventually wave will be opened up to everyone (gmail started with the same invite deal), but I’m not convinced it will replace email.  We’ll see.

Sometimes I think about all these new technologies and I wonder what my dad would have said about them, geek that he was.  Wikis, blogs, twitter, facebook, skype, Garmins, iPhones, google wave… man alive, he would have loved this stuff.  Although he liked to be surprisingly grouchy about some things (like cell phones… after he got in a fight with the Motorola people because they wouldn’t give him unlimited minutes for $20 a month).  On a side note, I’m headed to Memphis tomorrow for the St. Jude’s Half Marathon, in honor of the old grouch!  If you still want to donate you can do so here:

https://waystohelp.stjude.org/sjVPortal/public/displayUserPage.do?userId=315633&programId=401&eventId=55854

I came across this video the other day.  It’s a portion of a lecture of Stuart Hall, said to be the founder of Cultural Studies.  Here he describes the different types of representations in the media.  I thought it was interesting.

I also found this course on MIT’s opencourseware site that I want to “take.”  I’m going to work on that.

Gender and Media Studies: Women and the Media

So, I’m in the field of educational technology, and I’ve started noticing more and more the sorts discourses that surround this field.  There’s the “technology is ruining our kids” discourse, the “necessary, but not really our ‘nature’” discourse, the “technology can change the world” discourse, and many many more, but those first three I encountered just today in my email inbox.  How about that?  It was quite a day for competing discourses.

Exhibit A: At work we get an email that aggregates news articles regarding education from around the state.  Today there was an article from the Findlay Courier titled, “Cell phones a challenge for educators.” This is part of the “technology is ruining our kids” discourse.  This is the full article; I inserted my own comments in parentheses.

Cell phones worry educators, and “sexting” makes them cringe.  Most schools have the same policy on cell phones: Students must keep their phones turned off and in their lockers throughout the day.  But some school officials say the policy is loosely enforced.  Besides cell phones being disruptive, there is a concern that students could use them to cheat or to spread rumors and gossip through the school quickly (this stuff happens with or without technology). And now, there are concerns about “sexting” (this too).  It gives educators an added incentive to enforce their bans on cell phones.  “We don’t go looking for the cell phones, but if they have them out, we’ll take them,” said Glenwood Middle School Principal David Alvarado.  None of Glenwood’s students has been caught sexting (please note), but Alvarado has found pornography on a student’s phone.  “Anytime you see a group of seventh-grade boys huddling around a phone, it makes you question what they’re doing,” said Alvarado.  He broke up the huddle and searched the phone. There were pornographic pictures, but no pictures of other students, he said. The boy was punished (I wonder how he was punished, this is a little vague).

Findlay High School has turned over one sexting incident to the police, said Principal Victoria Swartz.  “It didn’t take place in school, but we had heard there were pictures on a phone. It’s nothing we saw. We heard a rumor,” Swartz said.  The report turned into a criminal investigation, she said (they turned it over to a criminal investigator based on a rumor?).  That is about as much trouble as Findlay High has had with sexting, but Swartz said school officials aren’t naive enough to think it is not happening (based on this one incident, you need to be afraid).  “That is where parents can help. Be aware of what your children are doing with their phones,” Swartz said (be afraid and alert!).

Swartz can share cell phone horror (sounds like an exaggeration. horror, really?) stories from her work as an assistant principal and attendance officer at Louisville High School in the Akron/Canton area, and as an assistant principal of middle schools in Barberton and Ravenna.  “As a mother myself, I respect the intent parents have with cell phones. I know parents want to know their students are safe, and we don’t want to go around snatching everyone’s cell phones,” she said.  “We have to ask parents to stop calling and texting their student during the school day.”  Parents often cite safety as the biggest reason for giving their children cell phones, Swartz said, but that thinking can backfire if the technology is misused.  She tells a story about three students caught texting during an Ohio Achievement Test, invalidating the test. One boy responded to the text, without cheating. His test was invalidated, too (horror?).  “Now, imagine this boy was a senior and this was his last chance to pass the test before graduation,” Swartz said (imagine!).  Worse yet is Swartz’s story of a student using a photo taken in the locker room to bully another student. The student was disciplined by the school. Today, the same student would also be facing criminal charges, she said (that’s crappy, but horror?).

“In school, we tell them to turn them off,” she said of cell phones. “Out of sight, out of mind, and don’t use them for anything,” she said (sounds like a very naive policy, cell phones are powerful little devices, we can’t just pretend they don’t exist).  Bruce Otley, principal of Liberty-Benton Middle School, said his students are “pretty good” about following the rules and so far, there has been no discipline involving sexting.  “The students need to be aware that anything they send electronically is utterly the same thing as publishing it,” said Otley (be afraid!  you are being watched at all times… the panopticon!). “It is reproducible and retrievable. We tell them not to send anything you wouldn’t feel comfortable reading out loud to your mom” (be afraid, your mom is watching!).

Otley is encouraging both students and parents to attend a technology safety seminar being hosted by Cory-Rawson Schools at 7 p.m. Thursday at Cory-Rawson High School. The seminar is open to the public.  Jay Arbaugh, superintendent of Cory-Rawson, said the presentation is meant to help students avoid the problems that come with the Internet and other technology (a whole seminar on problems?  any positives?).  “Everything is so intertwined now. We’ll cover the issue of sexting, too,” he said (what’s “everything”?).  Arbaugh said his district has had no problems with sexting (so is it a HUGE problem or not?).  However, “It is a worry. You go anywhere and talk to other principals and superintendents about it, and they are worried, too. It makes for some very interesting, and scary, stories. It is something you’d rather not deal with, but you have to be ready,” Arbaugh said (it seems like they are afraid for very little reason).

Richard Steiner, principal of Central Middle School, said there were rumors “of stuff that happened over the summer” involving Central students and sexting, but nothing this school year (isn’t this a pitiful excuse for a case against cell phones?).  Steiner said the school will hold two assemblies, one for seventh- and eighth-graders, and a separate assembly for sixth-graders, on sexting.  The program has been developed by the Hancock County Prosecutor’s Office in cooperation with the Findlay Police Department, the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office and the Family Resource Center (gosh, sounds scary).  “We need to make sure they are educated at an early age about the responsibility of the cell phone. It is a great tool for families to use, but it also has its downfalls,” Steiner said (ooh, they said something good about cell phones!).

Don Williams, principal of Donnell Middle School, said being proactive works when it comes to teaching students about the downside of technology (how would he know this?).  Donnell hosted its first parent meeting about Internet safety and the legal perils involved with sexting last year.  “I’d like to think that’s why we aren’t seeing a lot of problems, but it concerns me, too. I’m sure it is happening, but we haven’t been hearing about it,” Williams said (so, is it working or not?  if it’s happening anyway then it’s not).  “We’ve worked to bring attention to it,” said Williams. “The unfortunate thing is kids can make a mistake with this stuff, and it won’t just be a lesson learned, no harm done. I don’t think they realize how permanent these things can be and how it can come back years later and haunt them. I think at this age, it is hard for them to look that far in the future” (be afraid, everyone is watching… the panopticon!).

Ha, I wonder if anyone is still reading this blog post?  That was fun.

Exhibit B: I received a second email, this one from Oprah (yeah, I get emails from Oprah, I know that’s a problem).  This one shows the discourse of “technology is necessary but not our ‘nature’”.  There were lots of links to articles on oprah.com in the email, but this was the intro:

“Make Time for What Matters
Is the technology that’s supposed to be helping you—your BlackBerry, cell phone, laptop—actually keeping you from the things that matter most? Power down and start living life to its fullest instead of letting your devices get the best of you.”

What if technology was part of helping you work with “what matters most”?  Why must we separate “living life to its fullest” and “letting your devices get the best of you”?  What if it’s not either/or, but both/and?  What is “natural” anyway?  Is there a “natural”?

Exhibit C: The third email I received was from MIT’s MediaLab.  At ODE awhile back, I created a unit on Game Design for gifted kids using a free software called Scratch (created by MIT).  Here’s the implied discourse of “technology can change the world”.

“Dear Lauren,

I’m writing to you on behalf of the Scratch Ed team at the MIT Media Lab.  I’d like to invite you to an online community of Scratch educators (at http://scratched.media.mit.edu). ScratchEd is an online space where educators around the world can meet and connect. You can find out about some of the cool things other educators are doing with Scratch, and share your own teaching experiences and resources.

I came across your Scratch unit plan at Curriki and had the pleasure of sharing it with other members of our community (here’s the link).  We’d love to hear more about what you’re doing with Scratch!

Hope you’ll join us online. Please let me know if you have any questions.”

I guess I’m biased toward this discourse more than any others, though I know it’s more complicated (see the much overstated Exhibit A).  Here, technology has enabled a community of educators to share and get feedback on curriculum.  These are the types of things that couldn’t happen in the same way before these technologies were available.

So, is technology good, bad, unnatural, natural, the same old thing, life-changing?  Yes.  It’s not simple.  It’s not black and white.  Our job then?  To be constantly aware, critical, creative, but never satisfied or finished.

I used wordle.net to create a word cloud of my blog.  It lets you put a URL in for analysis, and I was hoping it would be a word cloud of my WHOLE blog (all year and half of it), but no, it’s just a word cloud of the last ten entries (what’s visible now on the site).  Still, it’s kind of cool.  What it does, is take the most frequently occurring words and they appear larger, the less frequent, smaller.

Check out the two largest words: think and work.  Go figure.  But, I’m in my Cincinnati home tonight, so I’m going to take a bit of a break from both of those things and go eat some Doritos.

I’m tired.  I had my long Tuesday again today (you know the 13 hours on campus one?).  I don’t have much to talk about, but I did come across a report by technorati on the State of the Blogosphere.  Check it out.  I fit in relatively well with the stats on this page (except that I’m not a man).  What does that mean?  I’m shaped by discourses?  I don’t know.  I need sleep.

In Canton today, I got to go to one of Marky’s basketball games.  It was quite a nail-biter, so I forgot to take pictures.  Then, Katie went to trick-or-treat and the rest of us went to the Winking Lizard for a late lunch for Julie’s birthday.  It was fun.  Here are Julie, me and my mom:

Happy Birthday/Halloween

Dan and I got home around 7 and I tried to read some for class, but could not keep my eyes open.  I took a nap and then woke up to read a bit more.  I read an interesting chapter on “the machine.”  I thought I was nothing for Halloween, turns out, I’m a cyborg* (and every day is Halloween).  I talked about this once before, but what the heck, it’s interesting to me.  Not only is technology sort of messing with our notions of time (synchronous, asynchronous, what?) and space (where is my blog anyway?), but also our beingness in the world.  The computer (connected to the internet) extends (some might say constrains) my capacity to read, write, learn, communicate, think, be, etc. etc.  I go nowhere without at least my iPhone (though laptop is preferable), which I use to constantly check email, update facebook, record thoughts, check wikipedia, oh, and sometimes answer phone calls.  My laptop makes me exponentially smarter.  I remember learning to read difficult texts in high school and how inefficient I was at it.  If I didn’t know a word, I would rely on context clues or maybe, possibly, go find that collegiate dictionary on the bookshelf in the living room to look it up (but only if the sentence was nonsense without the word, and okay, sometimes not even then).  But, if I didn’t know a literary reference, I just allowed myself to be confused and not understand the passage (I mean, really what was I going to do, go to the card catalogue at the library?  And do you remember how terrible the internet was in 1996?).  Sometimes a teacher would elaborate on the reference in class, which would sometimes clear it up and sometimes not.  Reading now, with my laptop, is a completely different experience.  I look up words instantly and then tweet them to keep a log of words I am learning.  I look up references to philosophers and read the wikipedia page to help me understand (and sometimes several subpages that leads to a veritable labyrinth of information).  I understand what I am reading in ways not possible without my handy extension of the mind/body.  Even in class, if some big name theorist or book or article comes up that I don’t know, I don’t have to try to look contemplative to avoid the suspicion of my ignorance (though suspicion abounds I am sure), I just look it up right then and there, and am able to follow a conversation I might not have been able to follow otherwise.  In a way, this is sort of an old idea.  I mean, even the seemingly insignificant invention of lenses, eventually used to make glasses, extends our sight.  Cars extend our motility.  Technology has been changing the way humans function for a long time, but I still lean toward the idea that computer technology has made changes that rock our assumptions of reality in ways not imagined before.  I mean, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, cyborgs?  This is the stuff of science fiction.  I belong in a science fiction novel.  Here I am constructing my life in this virtual space, which is everywhere and nowhere all at the same time and at different times, any time.  It’s mind boggling.  And for those who read this and don’t know me in real life, this is all I am.  This little box with words and photographs.  It doesn’t even matter if I “really” exist.  All I am for them is what is on this website.  What’s the difference between the “real” me and the website?  Or am I both?  I say both, I think, because I’m a cyborg.

*I like Donna Haraway and her Cyborg Manifesto.