Reader going? Well waaa, waaa, waaa!

For some reason, I've been feeling decidely unsympathetic lately. So this may sting a bit.

Yeah, Google announced that they are suspending Reader. A friend's reaction:

Can you tell me WHY Google is taking down Google Reader? I will be bereft without it. Why are they doing this to me? I KNOW they are picking on me personally....just because I have not been keeping up on my reading lately.

Could be Ms Henry. Could be...

GoogleReader has gotten my attention every day for a lot of years and I find the information it contains of far more value than my e-mail and more efficient than Twitter. (see Why RSS Still Matters) It's simple to use, works on all my devices, and requires no learning curve. Like a light switch or flush toilet, it simple does its job without me having to think about it. It's a staple of my PLN.

It's a comfortable old friend. But now I need to make a new friend. It's taken about half an hour to get Feedly (one of the dozen or so replacements being touted by various pundits) up and running and usable. Big whoop. As I use it over the coming days and weeks, I am sure there will be things about Feedly I like and don't like. (It IS prettier.) I may stay with it or switch to another RSS aggregator that I like more. 

Personally, I think it is a good thing that we are forced to change the way use technology now and then. Those of us who encourage others to do things in a new way, even when it takes time and feels uncomfortable for a while, ought to be expected to do so ourselves.

Being asked to so on a more regular basis might even make me more sympathetic. 

Give your tech Nazi a hug today

Back from Beijing. A little caught up at work. Jet lag receding. Book manuscript reviewed and submitted. Somewhat prepared for next round of talks on Friday. Missing my blogging. 

While Beijing's air quality and traffic left a lot to be desired, it was the great dispute between China and Google that left me frustrated. While not completely blocked by the Great (fire) Wall of China, GoogleApps, including Gmail, Docs and Reader were painfully slow - or perhaps I should say - unreliable. At the hotel, a five-star with otherwise good Internet connectivity - Gmail messages could be sent about one of every three attempts. All Google documents loaded painfully slow. It was almost worse than having the services blocked completely. At least with Facebook and YouTube you didn't even try.

The politics behind the situation - with Google blaming China and China blaming Google for the problems - don't really interest me. But what I did come to realize is just how complacent I have become about fast and reliable Internet access here both at home and at school.

It's pretty easy to beat up on the "Nazis" in the tech department whose primary concerns revolve around adequacy, reliability, and security. Who sometimes block or limit bandwidth intensive websites and applications. Who worry about denial of service attacks. Who demand strong passwords.

But live even a few days with a flakey connection and you will be very happy to accept a degree of control in exchange for stability. It makes me wonder to what extent teacher reluctance to adopt technology is not a by product of still unreliability. I'd be tempted to swear off mny things tech were I living in Beijing.

Give your tech Nazi a hug today.

Oh, the conference was wonderful and the librarians from international schools around China and Mongolia were fantastic. I'd go back tomorrow.

But I miss paper maps!

 

A colleague and I were visiting about the need for print reference resources, when the subject of print atlases came up. "Do we really need them?" I asked. "We have easy access to GoogleMaps. GPS in our phones and cars. A million maps online. Aren't paper maps and the ability to use them sort of an anachronism?" 

"Oh, but I just love print maps!" she lamented.

And so do I. I have always loved maps. I own atlases. I have old maps framed and hung on my walls at home. I stop at the welcome center each time I enter a state to get its latest highway map. But I also recognize that I may be the last generation who so loves print maps.

And print books. And turning off one's cellphone now and then - and prefering talking to texting. And using a keyboard. And having a desktop computer. And getting a newspaper delivered to my door each morning. And enjoying with my grandchildren picture books that don't always sing and dance. And attending F2F conferences and meetings and inservices. And hanging on to a host of analog things that are now digital.

I constantly ask myself if a change - print maps to digital maps and GPS - is truly negative or if it is just uncomfortable to me as someone who grew up analog, now being shoe horned into a digital world. 

My sense is that a knee-jerk reaction either approving or rejecting a digital way of doing something is dangerous - and that any new medium will have both its benefits and its weaknesses which may not be known for years. But I am inclined to try the new and especially to accept that the new for me is the de facto experience for our students. 

Here there be dragons, indeed.