Today, my son slept a lot recovering from his two month booster shots. (It can also be said that he had two modes of operations today crying and sleeping.)
In the quiet moments, (and my daughter allowed there to be several quiet moments) I got to thinking, which means I got the itch to do some blogging. For a while my thoughts focused on how the technology that I use has built one on another with a common strand of connecting people and ideas. Generally, such technologies have fairly low thresholds for adoption and tend to have minimal hardware requirements, not to mention have greater potential to keep the faculty and learner at the center of education not the technology.
The thoughts of where I am now with regards for technology are pretty much at the opposite end of the spectrum than when I took my first computers in education course back in the early 1990’s in Thompson Hall learning Hypercard. Now don’t get me wrong. I saw the value of incorporating technology and even comprehended the paradigm shift that well integrated technology could start/support(at least on the surface). But I could not figure out how a classroom teacher had time to develop computer based simulations for a classroom of 28’ish’ with a handful of computers at best AND still accomplish the other duties of teaching.
What changed between then and now? The web. With creation of the world wide web, a new door opened that allowed the common human (at least those of us in developed countries) easy access information, interactions, and simulations. The web also provided a media where with a minimal amount of expertise one could enter as producer of content.
With the development of blogging software and other applications of the read write web the threshold for adoption is even lower. Web 2.0, whether an appropriate title or not, brings the threshold down to anyone with a desire and a device that will connect to the web.
Now this does not mean that I blindly promote blogs, wikis, and the like? No, as there are many other technologies – multimedia narratives, flash animations/simulations, learning management systems, personal response devises, digital presentations (powerpoint) – that fill a role within educational technology but most if not all require a time commitment for training, learning, and /or development. (And time is a scarce commodity in everyone’s lives especially for classroom instructors.) But the easy of adoption make tools of the read write web very attractive for courses that promote thinking, communication and writing skills.
Where will I go with instructional technology? It is hard to say, but after reviewing this year’s Horizon Report from NMC and ELI, I think I am traveling a similar path with others in educational technology. In addition to my investigation/adoption of various read write web tools, podcasting/personal broadcasting, personal portable computing devices (pda/cell phones), virtual worlds, and educational gaming have captured my curiosity.
Thoughts, Experiments and Experiences 
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