Mendeley

I want to reflect my own history of using technological tools here. Dr. Lubke's experiences really resonates with me. I could use the technology for some purposes at some moments in my life. However, before I adopt it for my daily life, I need to find a role for it. For example,  I heard of people using dropbox before. However, I didn't use it until I found I need something to synch the desktop at home and the one in my office. Therefore, I began to use dropbox. It is hard for people to use technology for the using sake, well not for me at least. This phenomenon might also be understood from the perspective that people don't like to step out of their comfort zone. I used a flash drive before I adopted dropbox. One incident happened (the flash drive didn't work well) "forced" me to change to dropbox. Now I am enjoying using dropbox. I also upgraded my account by paying 99 dollars per year. I think that is worthy.

Same thing for me to adopt Mendeley (I will definitely use Mendeley; I have uploaded all my papers to Mendeley). I am in a review project. The Co-PI is a professor in Korea. We need to collaborate with her students. I found Mendeley is really good at collaborating. I am pushing my adviser changing Endnote to Mendeley :)

This reminds me my previous experience in educational technology. By learning the history of American's educational technology, teachers seldom adopted tools for the using sake. They need to have specific purposes for using tools. However, I am wondering how to push "boundary" (at the boarder line of using tools and not using them) people adopt new tools although it is not that necessary, such as my flash drive didn't work.