First reaction to technology

I asked my students what their first reactions were to the technology they were using for the class, you know, how the wiki worked out and how it didn't work, how blogger.com worked and how it didn't work, stuff like that. I want them to notice all the glitches, overcome the challenges of using technology to write so they can fully appreciate the impact. I literally want them to suffer all the negative sides of technology and be able to evaluate its full potential after having taken my class this semester. But I also want them to realize its benefits too. Faster communication within the group/community, being able to publish anything and everything for everyone to see, its flexibility so that mistakes are easily corrected and so on. It is probably most amazing that you don't have to be McGann, Spielberg, or Oprah to publish something that everyone would read. You don't need money, you don't need to find a publisher, you don't need to advertise or anything. Any mistakes you make are noticed by the community immediately and corrected. If you have a question about something, you can get an answer from someone who is also interested in the same topic but lives on the other side of the planet. You might not ever met this person, but he is willing and able to help you out. That's the beauty part about reading and writing on the digital platform. But of course, it comes with a price. Technology can be a pain in the neck at times. You might feel like throwing your laptop out the window at times, servers might be down (as some of my students already experienced in blogger.com), it might take a while to figure out how something works. Technology is a wonderful thing that allows us to do millions of things, but I also want my students to experience fully the negative sides of it too.
While some of my students are struggling with what to write on their blogs, some are treating it as if they blogged all their lives. Some are already manipulating the ready made templates, posting URLs, pictures and such. Others need a bit more assistance. But they are learning skills that will last them a lifetime. One of my students writes that although at first she wasn't exactly sure about this blogging, she feels that it is becoming quite addictive. It is very true. This is why I currently have three blogs.