A while back I was minding my own business when at tweet came across my stream on Twitter from @msherr.

I immediately recognized the book and the author as The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. It has been so long since I’ve read the book, but I distinctly remember this part because of the personification of the lake. It’s truly a beautiful book.

So we’ve been following each other ever since, and Ms. Herr tagged me with this interesting tag:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences (sentences 6-9).
5. Tag five people.

Okay, so I’ll start by saying that I had to change the rules. I just had to blaze a new path. Do things my way or the highway. (Insert your own Cliché here)

The nearest book to me was my Freshman Composition book. I was not about to spend 20-30 minutes writing a blog post to insert a few lines from my textbook. Booooring. Next was the book I’m so desperately trying to start and finish: Persepolis. Yes, it’s a movie, but it was book first. And if you’re familiar with it, you’ll understand why I couldn’t use it either for this. It’s a picture book with bubbles with text in them. Pass.

Okay, so here’s where I changed the rules. Close your eyes and randomly grab three books off your bookshelf. Follow the above rules. Post the best one. So here goes:

“I am one such intrusion, stroking you with necrophiliac obsession, loving the shell laid out before me.

The dead you is constantly being rubbed away by the dead me. Your cells fall and flake away, fodder to dust mites and bed bugs. Your droppings support colonies of life that graze on skin and hair no longer wanted.”

I’ll leave that uncited in case anyone cares to guess the source. It’s a great book- one of my favorites. It beat out A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf – didn’t have 123 pages, and Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues. I just couldn’t bare having to type the word vagina 3 times and have it read out of context.

Now for the best part. Who should I tag? I’ll go with my old faithful Cybersalon Crew and my reading buddy. Although I don’t anticipate a big response since I know half of you will be heading off to SXSW next week, just thought I’d see what you’re reading.

1. @caitcody: I’m sure she’s got some juicy Rad book sitting on her nightstand.
2. @nooccar
3. @rrodrigo
4. @befitt
5. @cogdog

People in education are always saying that the today’s students are the millennials, digital natives, born on technology and live on technology. Well, I’m here to say, it ain’t so. At least not my students. My students don’t have computers at home. They don’t text. They don’t chat. And email is not the necessity that it should be for a group that is touted as digital natives. I just don’t see it.

Here’s an example that really befuddles me – my own step son. Yep. He lives in my house and none of my techno savvy(ness) has rubbed off. How many 16 year olds do you know that don’t have a MySpace account? or an email address? I know; it’s unbelievable, but it’s true. Nada. I created an email account for him so he could use iTunes to buy music, but I’m pretty sure he’s never sent or received an email other than the iTunes Tuesday thingy that everyone gets. My bet is that his mail box is full of those. But I digress. What was this post about anyway?

Ah Yes, recreating me because my students just don’t get. I’ve been creating screencasts, podcasts and vodcast of my lectures and in class demonstrations, showing students how to do everything from check messages on the course network to how to do and upload an assignment. I can’t decide if this is a service or a disservice though. I mean I get the strangest questions from students.

Here’s what happened yesterday. I lectured for an hour about how to do the first two assignments. I walked them through the process of how to do it and how to use the technology  del.icio.us & Bedford Bibliographer). I mean I went through step by step. Then I showed them where the screencast was that would demonstrate the same principles in case they missed or forgot something – a recreation of me. Then today I get a phone call from a student who asked me two questions that were clearly explained in both the in class lecture and the screencast. Was she not listening? Was she even there? I had to ask. She said she was in class.

Sometimes I feel like I’m spoiling students by being too accommodating. Should I have responded that the student should go back and watch the screencast. I mean I did create it for that purpose. But I’m sure the problem is the technology. This student doesn’t have a computer at home. She can’t watch it. Others just don’t want to bother. It’s too complicated, so they say. I don’t have this or that. Digital natives my ass. I just don’t see it. At least not at my school. So I’ll just continue to recreate myself and hopefully someday those digital natives will show up and appreciate the effort I’ve made to create a technology rich environment in which to learn.

I was really exciting watching my bandwidth meter quickly fill up after the post. Screencast.com, the website that hosts your screencasts after you create them with Jing, offers a 60 Day Trial account, but you only get limited space and bandwidth. Storage is .20 GB (200 MB) and Bandwidth is 1 GB. That was plenty for the few screencasts I created using Jing. Normally I’m a bit more verbose than the 5 minute limit allows with Jing, so I use the full program, Camtasia Studio, and upload to my own server. I’d been meaning to upgrade my Trial account, but the trial never ran out. Well, the bandwidth meter filled up two days after the post on The Visual Lounge. So I had to upgrade my account. I’m good now.

It was inevitable, especially since I have ideas for more short screencasts to share with my readers on my blogs. Betsy even offered to comp me, but the pricing is very reasonable at Screencast.com. I paid $6.95 for a month and that increased my storage and Bandwidth to 25GB (See photo above). When I’m ready I’ll buy a year, which is even cheaper: $69.50. You can pay more to get more storage and bandwidth. The key to saving money here is to not get too popular with your screencasts.

It was also fun having another blogger pick up on the post and blog about it on his own blog. Scott over at A Piece of My Mind blogged about it. It makes sharing rewarding when you know others can benefit from what you have to share.