I rely on technology a lot. I have almost no sense of direction, so I frequently use a GPS to find my way. I also a a big fan of electronic books, and using personal electronics to augment my own skills or deficiencies. I jot down reminders in my phone, look up technical things on the web, all sorts of things like that.
In my day job I'm a programmer - and one big way I use tech to facilitate that is through taking training. I love udemy.com's stuff. Watching streaming videos over a cellular connection can be an expensive proposition though.
This morning, before I got going, I had the forethought to download the rest of the Twitter Bootstrap videos from the class I'm taking, right onto my tablet.
This means I can watch them any place, regardless of whether I have an internet connection or not.
The same thing's true of technical e-books I have downloaded into the reading app on my tablet, too.
I remember some years ago, when I was first learning some new skills, I bought these absolutely enormous tech books. They cost me about $45 a pop, each weighed upwards of 2 pounds, too. I was commuting to a project that was about 2 hours by car from my house. I used to keep these books in a box in the trunk of my car. I would pop outside to my "mobile library" to get a book or two, and bring them back into the office.
What a pain in the ass. Plus, there were all these practical limitations to it. There were only so many books I could keep with me, and keep track of. They were pricey, and I couldn't always get my company to pay for them. More than one of these books wound up getting "borrowed" by co-workers too, only for me to never see them again.
E-books, and video courses like the ones I use now are fairly inexpensive. I don't need to ask my company to buy them for me, I just buy them myself, and write them off.
It amazes me how much raw material I can keep with me, and how easily, now. I can teach myself ANYTHING, and I can have access to pretty much all of the materials I need to do so. With just a little advance planning, even connectivity issues are irrelevant.
I'm so grateful I have these powerful tools available to me, to help me better myself.