I laud free all the time but with the understanding that nothing lasts on the net or with technology in general. The best products have an easy learning curve, fit the need at the time, improve current work and are not focused on the technology but on skills.

Schools are fantastic at wasting money. Let’s continue to push for “free” and be flexible with our use enough to allow us to transition easily and quickly when something changes their payment plan. The number of examples of schools who have been burned by companies is long indeed!

I certainly enjoy and value applications such as Twitter, and I have NeoOffice loaded on all my Macs, but I understand I am using them at my own risk of loss. I felt that very kind of loss when Google Browser Sync was dropped (I’m still running Firefox 2.0 because I’m not ready to give up my browser syncing). I’m just not ready to be responsible for being the one who brings that sense of loss to my entire district.

I was rather troubled at the conference session mentioned above when the presenter listed 40 current Web 2.0 tools that all administrators should be required to know and use. I’m sorry, but that isn’t the point. We should all be advocating for the process and the purpose of the tools, but the tool itself is never the point. We don’t go into our houses each night and talk about the hammer that built it. We’re certainly grateful for that hammer, but we’re really more concerned with the product the hammer produced. Such should be the case when we advocate for change in the ed-tech realm.

Tom Hoffman linked to this post with more on this subject. Free to Freedom.

But as you know, time is money, so committing resources to truly understanding these tradeoffs is still a longer route than just jumping on a hot Web 2.0 app.

Do not get me wrong, I love some of the Web 2.0 ‘tools.’ I have had a fun time playing with them and even have shared a few on my blog. However, I realize three things; they might not be around tomorrow, many of them are the equivalent of “one hit wonders”, and I am essentially the Beta tester.

Wordle, for example, was a very fun little App which I played with and blogged about. I took something I had written for a class and it made a beautiful piece of art. While I could see it in a classroom filling the same purpose, that is all it does. No depth to the application. When my wife, the English teacher, tried to use it, it wouldn’t work. So, I imagine I could have sent them an email explaining the problem, but then, as I stated before, I am like the beta-tester. Don’t you imagine all of us on Twitter acting as a large scale Beta test?

I am reminded of an old cliche, All that glitters is not gold. I am the first person to try something new if I think it can help me reach an objective in my class. However, I want to keep supporting traditional and quality software manufacturers so that I will always have great products to use in my class.

I am still convinced that if Eisenhower were alive today, he’d say “Beware the education industrial complex.”

Personally, I’m happy to pay a reasonable price for something I find valuable. However, I’m not going to be happy at all if that price is putting up with a flood of advertising.