I have a class website (Blackboard) run by our Little U that I like quite well. However, many students, after running into a password wall, give up and never try the site again. Some of this may be because my demographic is more rural, with a wide range of income levels. One young woman, her long hair always perfectly shiny and combed, opened her dark-rimmed eyes wider in astonishment when I explained to her that I expected her to access her email and Blackboard on a regular basis, say more than twice a semester. "I have an email?" she asked.

So, this semester I set up a class blog where I can place my Course Calendar, funky pictures, relevant comics and art, plus update any changes to the calendar. Since I'm giving them Tuesday off to watch the Inauguration, based solely on a selfish desire of mine, I needed a way for them to engage and at least be aware of this historical occasion. (When I told a new student that her last name was the same at Obama's new Chief of Staff, she looked at me and said "What?") I decided I would have them post a response to the Inauguration to our class blog.

So, as I dismissed them today I asked anyone who didn't know how to post on a blog to come up to the front of the class before they left and I'd brief them. I had seven in one class standing around my table and about the same number in the second. I launch into my demonstration. Mind you I'm doing all this in the air, with hands waving, pointing and clicking in abstract because our Little U has no money for Smart/Wired Classrooms (and really, generally that's OK except for things like this) but there I am trying to get the message across with air clicks on invisible buttons, fingers moving on an invisible keyboard typing word verification.

One swarthy very clean-shaven (head and all) young man is following me along and I think he's looking at me like I'm reciting the Gettysburg Address in Russian. Another young woman says she's such a dolt, but could I go over the word verification again? Not a dolt, I say, just learning a new tool, and I reprise my act.

I feel for these students, thrown into college and cyberspace and clicks far away from the comfort of their pocket cellphones with their closed circle of faces and names and experiences. No smart phones in this bunch, just screens that flash baby pictures, smaller-town phone numbers, and Mom opening her Christmas gift.

When I arrived home this afternoon, I did a screen capture and posted it as the first entry on each blog, complete with instructions.

I guess I have lived in the stream of the internet for so long now it always surprises me to find outposts where a functioning email address is a Big Deal, where a blog is a Strange and Unusual Food, like the native peoples on the Virgin Burger King commercial, surrounded by outsiders mimicking how to hold the burger, like me clicking and typing in mid-air.

However, unlike some of those native peoples who needed a Whopper like they needed a hole in the head, my students need to jump in feet first and swim.