Technology

Like most of us, I have a love/hate relationship with technology. This week I am leaning towards hate. My students submit everything on-line, with the exception of in-class writing assignments. I sat down to respond to student writing on Sunday afternoon, and low and behold my screen went blank. Luckily, my computer is not quite a year old- in fact we are getting a new hard drive on Monday just under the wire. the warranty expires on 12/13, so in that respect Im lucky. I email everything to myself and back most things up on an exteranl hard drive, but it was still inconvenient. Iwent upstairs to use my husband's computer, and that worked for two days, then it became infected with a virus and CRASH!. The laptop has a broken screen ( my son dropped it off of a balcony at the beach- I don't want to know details) , so we hooked up the screen to the upstairs computer to the laptop so Icould grade. It was extremely annoying, but I managed. Istarted thinking about all the students who don't have a computer at home, much less a back up plan, who don't have transportation or access to a library or other computers. After all, I could hop into my car , go to the library or to one of my two offices. As we become an increasingly technologically dependent society are we leaving students with limited financial resources futher behind? Sadly, Ithink this may be the case. Something to think about as we wrap up a rewarding and informative english/Education class.