Definately technology has evolved and I'm running to catch up with it. I think, intellectually, I am more comfortable talking about it than using it. But I have come to realize in a very short period of time that using it is an intellectual experience, too. Not just knowing the terminology or the nuts and bolts of the machines, but really making choices about why and when to use technology. The use of technology has sprouted an intellectual curiosity in me - not in the sense of an animal in a cage to be viewed from the outside, but diving in and trying it on.

From the Educause chapters, I gleaned that the Net Gens use technology as a way of life and as a result they require instant feedback, they learn by exploring (the wonderful"briolage" word from Levi-Strauss), they are driven by hope in that technology has solved many problems in their lifetime, they learn in multimedia environments, they require constant access to communicate through IM and social networking and yet they are very optomistic about the future. Where we come together is the need for facetime from faculty and that motivation mostly comes from the teacher. Technology is just the tool. That in itself is hopeful and still puts the responsibility of teaching to teachers.

Response to R/W tools
It's all about information, isn't it - reading it, writing it, cataloging it, seeing it, sending it, sharing it. I learned about RSS feeds as the rapid sharing of internet content, what collaborative wikis are, online graphing tools, how there are so many applications to online digital photo tools for the artist and what del.icio.us is. So mush to know and use. What is a mashup? I read it and still am not sure. I learned that Google.doc is a free web-based word processor for documents sharing, spreadsheets and presentations. I'm still unclear about their applications even though the video on the Googl.docs website was great. I'll haver to look at it again to sink in. I believe that it is an R/W program because it uses the web as a platform, it is interactive and is a publication tool for ideas. No, I have never used it. It's all simultaneously exhausting and exhilerating.