I’m not a technophobe. But I do find myself from time to time in sympathy with the ‘Technology is not progress’ brigade. Some of it probably stems from the frustration that comes from the glitches or bugs that seem to plague computers.
Some of it is… something else. Example -You want to print up a little note to go on the door of your classroom, informing pupils that you have moved class. You misjudge the font size and print it off, only to find that ‘Mrs O’Neill’ has been split between two lines and become ‘Mrs One Ill’. You change the font and print it off again, feeling guilty about the amount of ink you have now used. Second time around the destination of your new class is now inexplicably $$£. Third time lucky? No. The printer, exhausted by those large letters, blinks stupidly at you that it is out of toner.
You ask yourself why you didn’t just lift up a felt –tip pen and write the message on a piece of scrap paper. The felt tip pen might have run out, but could have been replaced in a matter of seconds. You are unlikely to misspell your name- the tablets are working today – and you are fairly competent at block capitals.
Tell me that your heart doesn’t sink when someone says ‘ We’ve just been computerised’ or ‘I’m sure I saved it’ or ‘ It will just take a moment on the computer’.
