Thing 7 Communication Tools

It seems to me that many of these tools i.e. email can be a blessing and a curse. I started email 12 years ago to keep in contact with my daughter in college. Now I use it to communicate with colleagues, parents and the outside world several times a day. I do not sit at my computer for any length of time so IM is less handy. In fact, I had to ask my daughter to join so I would have a partner. We used it once to test it and I have not used it since. I am intrigued with the idea of IM reference desk and I could see it would be great with tech support. I viewed a webinar on creating a customized google search engine. And I was excited to learn how to make one and I plan to use the tool with the sixth grade. It was through MINITEX. I have viewed webinars before and I think they are great since I live in a small town. Of course, all of these require more than just a few moments on the computer.