Go With What Works

I love technology and in case you haven't heard the 'in' shoe color this year was the skin-tone color.  (This picture isn't great because the sandal is darker than the picture shows, but stay with me.) I have a few connections this week to these skin-tone shoe choices.
1.  Every year I sign up for at least long term class so I can learn the 'latest' ways to integrate these tools into my students learning process, or sometimes just my own. I have used My Portaportal for many years as a bookmarking site for myself, my students, and other teachers.  So when I was challenged to try Diigo, I wasn't excited.  Another thing to remember/keep up with BUT.... I love it!  Now I don't like how it looks or is organized really.  Portaportal lets you put things in folders that visually open and close and to me just looks nicer, just like the amazing pumps my friend Leona got me pictured above.  With Diigo you can do so much more than just bookmark a site however.  I can highlight things on the page I want my students to read and I can even annotate notes for them right on the site. I can't wait to learn more about this site.  I must admit sometimes you go with the shoe or tech that you can do more in, regardless of the looks.
2. I LOVE these stiletto pumps. They are the perfect color but I must admit because they are six inches high after the platform and a size five they are pretty hard to walk in.  For sure not a shoe I can wear around school all day even though I did really try ONE day.  This year has been crazy with our district opening a new campus and changing boundaries from east to west to now north and south.  This has caused the tech department to be even more backed up than ever.  I thought I was getting a lot more technology than has actually showed up.  I had great plans for how my year was going to look with technology: ipads and netbooks available for all my students to allow them creative avenues to show the great things they are learning.  It was going to be the perfect stiletto tech year, going higher than ever before! My year started out with having to call my district's great tech people almost daily with the latest problem or checking on when my equipment might be ready, I even started bringing them chocolate!  Well, I have finally realized this is really going to be more of the skin-tone sandal year. I tried for a month to get the tech together for all the plans I had, which is longer than I tried wearing the stilettos. Reality: I did get a few more ipads (I really am grateful!) instead of being 1:1 and I got a few more netbooks that won't all be updated when I start using them.  But here is the thing, I can still get around pretty good so I might as well just accept it and get this year off and running.  Running will for sure be easier in sandals, I hope!
   How do you deal with the frustrations that come with trying to use technology that has a hard time staying updated? Any pointers for me because I would really like to be wearing those stilettos next year!