Is there?
A favorite story of mine from over a decade ago illustrates this possible difference.
In one of the first introduction to the internet courses I taught for in-service
teachers the relatively early lesson on bookmarking went very well. The next week,
however, one of my students approached me with a dismayed look on his face. He
explained to me that when he went home and opened his browser he looked for the
bookmarks that he'd created in class ... and they weren't there.
I've told this story to numerous groups I've met with over the past few years,
asking them what was "wrong" about my student. Invariably the people
in these groups will laugh and explain that my student didn't realize that if
he created bookmarks on one computer, that they were stored on the browser of
that particular computer, and couldn't automatically follow him around to whatever
computer in front of which he might sit. It's then that I reply to them that yes,
that's a logical interpretation, but a perhaps even more logical one is that my
student was simply a few years before his time. After all, today few of us who
access more than one computer see any reason to bookmark items in a browser-specific
manner. It makes perfect sense to us to mark them in an account that's accessible
from wherever we can log-in.
And though online office tools still seem to be concentrated in the hands of early-adapters,
the distinction between something being saved on our own computer's hard drive
and something saved somewhere on the internet is slowly but surely becoming blurred.
Go to: Taking it personally.