Goals -- A Revision

Okay, in thinking about it, I do have other goals for doing this 23 Things, especially since I already have my Technology credits for this continuing ed go-around. I really do want to learn some of these technologies better so I can do a better job with helping customers. I know just enough about just enough to make me dangerous -- I would like to be as comfortable with helping customers find music online, for example, as I am setting up an email account.

My aversion to setting goals for this -- and fair warning, my intermittent antipathy towards new technologies -- comes from the belief that our culture tends to deify technology when, in fact, technology is simply a bunch of TOOLS. Neil Postman (Amusing Ourselves to Death; The Disappearance of Childhood; Technopoly; Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk; but ESPECIALLY The End of Education) is my muse for these thoughts... he writes that technology, especially in education, has become a god that fails us as opposed to a god that serves us.

If there is a larger goal for using the technology, as opposed to just knowing how to plug something in and use it, then I'm down with that. It's the content-less use of technology for technology's sake that irks me and that is WAY too easy to drop into.

Goals and Ends

Oh, my goal for doing this blog is to complete the 23 Things for credit. I wish I had more exalted ends in mind, but... Nope. Credit.

I've Got a Habit

The easiest habit for me is actually the half-habit: Play! I'm curious about a lot of things (I'm polymorphously curious) and find myself following a billion different paths of knowledge. (I often forget much of what I learn, but that's another story...)

The hardest habit for me is probably the using technology one, which seems counter to the half one, right? But while I'm curious about all kinds of other things, wires-and-gizmos-technology has never been one of those things.

Some of this comes from a deep belief that paper is the BEST technology for deep communication, both reading and writing. And I hate trying to figure out which remote I need to use with the TV, and which buttons I should be pushing in what order to make it all go. It just seems a lot of bother for a little bang.