Why have I been ignoring you? Well, my best excuse is ‘we moved this Summer’ to a new home. And as you all know, that takes time and effort. My plan was to NOT teach any CLR courses this Fall so I could focus on moving/resettling tasks. That would have been a good plan, but then I thought I could teach a couple 6-week courses and still get everything else done. So that became the new plan (B). I’ll be teaching Chromebooks (I teach this course because I believe everybody should own at least 1 Chromebook – and know how to use it well), and in the second half of the semester I’ll teach a new class (that I really should get started creating instead of writing this post) called ‘Cheapskate Tech’. This new class teaches you everything you need to know to ‘invest’ in tech (toys) and not break the bank.
So that was plan B, then the folks at Lifelong Learning at Temple’s Ambler, PA campus called and asked if I would deliver my Senior Tech class in 6 weeks within their program – and of course I said “sure”. So there’s that.
Regarding my own tech purchases this Summer, they have been minimal since my new workspace has shrunk (which is a good thing). ‘Bout the only new piece of gear I added to my tech stable is a new iPad Air. Mostly it gets neglected, but most of my other Apple gadgets have become obsolete due to Apple’s planned obsolescence practices, so I thought an upgrade was necessary to stay current.
Regarding planned obsolescence, I just saw a message come up on my relatively expensive and working fine Asus ChromeBox that said “this is the last update I would receive for this model and I should upgrade” – I probably won’t. My point is, Apple’s not alone in ‘forcing’ us to upgrade our toys after a few years. Everyone’s doing it. Doesn’t make it right, or good for the environment. But selling stuff is how these guy make their money so they get to set the rules.
Ok, I’m going to start working on my Cheapskate class now. As usual, when I start teaching the class, all my slides will appear online here, so stay tuned. Have a great rest of Summer and Fall!
