High-Tech Education

The last time I attended an educational institution was a little over six years ago. Funny to think that when I first started college (in 1997), Internet was a totally new thing for me. And we all used Netscape as the internet browser on the PCs in the college computer labs. Netscape doesn't exist anymore, and now when I look around in a classroom I see lots of people typing their notes on their laptops and checking their email on their Blackberries from time to time. It is pretty amazing to compare that to my last time in a classroom when cell phone use was non-existent and no-one brought their laptop to class even if they had one. (And I am talking about the U.S. I won't even compare to Bulgaria where the "laptop-in-classroom" kind of development lies somewhere in the future.)

Just today I needed to receive a fax and I went around campus looking for a fax machine, when somebody told me, "Why don't you look online? There are free e-fax services out there." Honestly, the thought hadn't even occurred to me, but sure enough, there were plenty of e-fax services--some free, others not. You sign up, get your own fax number, and then receive your fax in PDF format by e-mail. So simple! (And to think that there is no fax machine at all involved in the process.)

Obviously, we have started taking these things a little bit for granted, but when I stop to think and compare to what it was like 10 years ago, the technological advances (especially with anything to do with the Internet) are simply mind-boggling! I am still wow-ed when I consider everything I can now do online.... and, often, now do for FREE.