Here is a shot of the informal survey that I took in my class. I asked students about the technologies that they use. The most used Web 2.0 tool? Facebook. The portable technology most students owned? Digital camera (besides a cell phone of course). I was surprised that only one of the students had ever heard of Flickr. Only one person blogs.

Lynda Barry On Writing

What it Is

E-text books

well looks like, in California, schools are looking more seriously at e-text books as alternatives to printed books..

Senate approves software as an alternative to textbooks
L.A. Unified supports the bill, which moves to the Assembly.
By Patrick McGreevy
May 12, 2009
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-school-books12-2009may12,0,3863262.story
Reporting from Sacramento -- California teenagers may be spared having to lug back-breaking loads of textbooks to school under a proposal that would make it easier for campuses to use electronic instructional more

Real Time

What's so great about Facebook, Twitter and the like? It's "real time" communication. These applications allow you to post to the web quickly and easily. Within a matter of seconds, you can post a thought or an idea and make it public (or public among your selected group only). These apps require no technical knowledge and they aggregate posts from other people, whose ideas you care about enough to follow.

So now Wordpress Blog is doing it too. Easier and quicker blogging. You can post short or long posts instantly. You can make them public or private. You can also tag your posts, which is a bonus that (as far as I know) neither Twitter or Facebook offer. Tagging allows you to organize your posts with bookmarks, so that you can find them easily later.

Learn more about it here.