I work a lot. I work at work. I work at home. I work from campus. I work from coffee shops. Recently, I convinced my boss to buy a broadband card and I have been able to work in the car. Recently, I’ve been fed up with working at home. Our DSL line was purchased four years ago. When we moved away from dial-up, it was the fastest, greatest thing since the iPod. But recently the speed has just left me aggravated. Today I finally made a call, decided to pay $20 more a month and more from 1.5MB speed to 10MB. I hope and pray it will ease the waiting period of uploading and downloading work (and fun) items. By the end of the workday tomorrow, I should be able to work faster. I’m kind of excited. No, I’m super excited.

Also, I’m trying to get an election project moving forward. It’s this collaborative effort I keep discussing. The Smart Decision 2008 site is up, but not ready. I don’t really have anyone to help with the Internet Explorer 7 CSS problems. I don’t really have a CSS person at all. It’s scary when I have such limited funds to make this project work.

BUT, we’re going to do the best we can.

I did get tipped off on a fascinating study on the electronic devices owned by college students. Get this: 97 percent of college students have a cellphone and 79 percent own a laptop. Even more - 30 percent of that 79 percent also own a desktop computer. Wow. It is proof of how ubiquitous technology is with students. Technology is assumed. It isn’t new. It is just there and professors need to find ways to take advantage of its use. I’m online all the time and I feel like I have yet to use it to the fullest. If only winter breaks were longer.

One of my students found an article in Time magazine that is pretty appropriate to think about when it comes to teaching people about new media. As technology is more transparent, media blends together better. A little first person article mentions how life is changing in a common household. Attention spans are different now.

Plus… I just found out about this. Super dooper cool. Journalists are opening up. I attended a meeting today and quickly learned that the work I’m trying to do really matters. When the New York Times is buying into the idea of delivering news in whatever format a person wants it… It must mean I’m on the right track.

What am I talking about, you ask? I love news. I love delivering the news. I have spent most of my career finding ways to share news abd information to a broadcast audience. When I realized there were SO many ideas on news delivery using technology. That’s why I jumped into this new media world. I wanted to help find ways to share and create information delivery methods. When I started this, I never realized how fast technology would advance and how seamless it could be to share information. And things are only getting started. I’m excited to see the simplicity of sharing information on social networks, how easy it is to build personalized news feeds… I could go on. Either way, it’s great to see the big guys jumping into this fun world in a way I can’t.