"...being responsible and being indebted"

On page 316 of the except, Heidegger talks of being "responsible and being indebted."  I know that he addresses the need to avoid misinterpretations, but the phrasing makes we wonder.  It is my question as to whether we are responsible for technology and Kelly's Technium, responsible to it, or even indebted to or by technology and the Technium.  The critical question may lie in the prespositions (and my high school students would groan at that).  Did we create it and are we responsible for it?  I guess that is the question we face when looking at the manner in which our developed technologies have impacted the earth and the resources around us.  Are we responsible for the damage being done to the planet due to our excess refuse and toxic waste?  Or do we rest blissfully in the knowledge that the detritus is due to the Technium, over which may may not ever have had any control (maybe I am taking some of Kelly's statements a bit too far here?). 

On the other hand, are we now indebted to technology and the Technium and are only able to move at its whim and within the demands and limitations it puts on us?  Are we now indentured servants who have been brought into the age of information by the Technium and now must pay in the many labors now demanded of us by the technology surrounding us? 

I know that I am being a bit cynical and may be responding in a semi-extremist manner, but I wonder if we have failed in what the Amish have succeeded -- allowing ourselves the power of adopting technology or rejecting it. 

In terms of education, I think that we may be failing to retain any semblance of control over technology.  In my school district, we are installing SmartBoard Interactive White Boards (IWB's) in each classroom.  We have been able to do this because we successfully marketed a bond proposal which promised this technology for each teaching space and now we are locked in, as the the funds cannot be put to any other use.  But, are IWB's the best way to teach all subjects to all kids?  Is it the best method for each teacher to use?  Are some teachers possibly more effective without the IWB technology than with it?  Those questions are not explicitly asked nor answered, yet rhetoric being used in my district hint toward evaluating teachers on the basis of how well they incorporate the IWB technology. 

Please understand, I believe that we still are in a position to USE technology more than it uses us, but we need to use the Amish adoption method before we leap into a technology that may or may not be a viable tool for some, all or maybe none of the teachers to whom it is being given (or forced upon, according to some of my colleagues.)

My apologies...I think that I may have ranted, but I want to teach myself, my children and my students to exercise as much control over their lives as they possibly can -- and sometimes that means not being the first- or even early-adopters, but sometimes waiting for a technology to "prove itself" and then incorporating it rather than completely reworking our methods to suit its possibilities....