Well done!

Really nice summaries, everyone. As you can tell (yes, I was a co-author on the long piece, but that probably means you should be more critical of it if anything), this is a subject that is near and dear to my heart. New technologies have given us lots of tools and opportunities, but they also raise the concerns some of you mention -- about interpersonal communication, for example.

The funny thing is that these technologies can also facilitate that kind of communication. I know more about each of you and your learning by doing this class as a hybrid than I would in a traditional format, for example. You each tell me so much through your blogs, and you spend time reading each others' writing, which you might not have been exposed to ordinarily. I see a deeper level of interaction with the ideas, in many ways, as well as a trail that I can go back to throughout the course of the semester and draw on. But it's more work, no doubt about it, and it's taken time for everyone to get used to these kinds of media and all their quirks.

I think the key is not to think of technology as entirely positive or negative -- it just isn't that simple. Like literacy, the ways in which we use technology depend on access and context, expertise and possibly age : ). There's so much to think about -- and computers are no magic bullet for education.