Pearblossom Education

Journal Entry 2/20 It looked like this:   0 Posts       0 Followers  0 Following And it was marvelous. No connections, no representation, no emotional discourse from the lost or hidden follow requests that had slipped through the cracks. No need to “like” my friend’s birthday pics or “love” a picture of someone’s new home. A fresh start. Nobody would miss me. And, they could always message me. After all, I had told my closest besties that I was doing this so they would not take anything offensively. I understand the necessity of having a smartphone for most jobs, so I am lucky I am able to take this break.  My teenage daughter and her friends are on a bandwagon trend where they have “0 Posts.” Yes, zero posts, as it posits a threat to their privacy. I liked the concept. Also, I had recently seen a news article about Cardi B. and her boyfriend “unfollowing” each other- producing a surreal whirlwind of drama that I could not believe made the news. I deci...

During a lesson about old technology, I found myself explaining to my students that the equivalent of texting was similar to the “ancient art” of communicating in pager code. Instead of using letters in an alphabet, numbers were put together to make a word.  Personal pager devices that were attached to the hip were common in the late 1990’s-2000’s. Pagers are small devices that are used to “page” another recipient when a phone call back is desired. My first pager was a small pink pearl one that fit right into the palm of my hand. It had about 15 different “ringtones” I could choose from when someone was trying to contact me, and it had a relatively long battery life.  A pager, also known as a beeper or bleeper, [1] is a wireless telecommunications device that receives and displays alphanumeric or voice messages. One-way pagers can only receive messages, while response pagers and two-way pagers can also acknowledge, reply to, and originate messages using an internal transmitt...