I really felt the need to share this article, though I know a lot of people have already seen it and are talking about it.

The Internet promises to have particularly far-reaching effects on cognition. In a paper published in 1936, the British mathematician Alan Turing proved that a digital computer, which at the time existed only as a theoretical machine, could be programmed to perform the function of any other information-processing device. And that’s what we’re seeing today. The Internet, an immeasurably powerful computing system, is subsuming most of our other intellectual technologies. It’s becoming our map and our clock, our printing press and our typewriter, our calculator and our telephone, and our radio and TV.

When the Net absorbs a medium, that medium is re-created in the Net’s image. It injects the medium’s content with hyperlinks, blinking ads, and other digital gewgaws, and it surrounds the content with the content of all the other media it has absorbed. A new e-mail message, for instance, may announce its arrival as we’re glancing over the latest headlines at a newspaper’s site. The result is to scatter our attention and diffuse our concentration.

What does Nicholas Carr think the internet is doing to our brains? Read the full article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”

Also, there is an interesting discussion going on at NPR’s The Bryantpark Project.

Today was day two of Tech Camp.  Just when I thought I was filled up with information, round two began.

The morning started with an overview of SmartBoard technology.  There is a SmartBoard in our lab, and though I have used it when Mrs. Robb set it up for presentations and have watched my class interacting with it in previous years, I needed to learn more.  After this morning’s session, I was so excited, I went to the campus on my lunch break and hooked up the SmartBoard to try a few things.  I’m not going to update the software until we get our new computers, but it was great to feel more confident with the technology.

We also discussed digital photography, though it was focused more on the aspect of evaluating cameras for purchase based on what the cameras will be used for.  Later on this summer, I will be participating in the Digital Photo Safari workshop.  Oddly enough, as we sat down in the Mac lab this afternoon to work with Google Earth and iPhoto, Ms. Garverick and I found series of pictures on our iPhoto libraries from last summer’s Photo Safari which included pictures of Mrs. Robb.  What a coincidence!

I’ve got a lot of great sites and ideas, and will post about those in subsequent blogs after some more experimentation.