My computer and keyboard have been through some heavy-duty use in
the past dozen years – the amount of time I’ve been teaching
online as well as working on a graduate degree online myself. The
classes I have been teaching are short courses, just five weeks, and I have to keep
close track of them as well as participate in order to keep students on
the rails; be available as a ready resource; try to stay out of the way
of their learning; douse sparks before they cause fires – the normal
things teachers do in online classes. Then there are papers to read, grade reports, and assorted administrative matters, all of which
require more keyboard time. I add my own classes, lots of email, regular
stops at favorite websites, frequent searches for information . . .
and, to paraphrase the late Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen (who was
talking about million-dollar allocations in the federal budget), an hour
here, an hour there, and pretty soon it adds up to real time.
I noticed the other day that with the gazillion hours I’ve spent
typing on three different keyboards over those years, on each one I’ve
nearly worn the “E” off the E key, with the N key not much more legible.
Who knew that N was such a frequently used letter in the English
language? Good to remember if you're ever on "Wheel of Fortune."
