The Tablet Ate My Homework

When I was a child we used to tell the teacher: The dog ate my homework.

Now the students say: the technology ate my homework. I told the Year 10s to email their homework to me. Two thirds of them were unable to do so. A typical exchange:

Student: I emailed it to you.
Teacher: No, you didn’t.
Student: Yes, I did.
Teacher: No, you didn’t.
Student: I thought I did. Oops, it’s still in my Outbox.

Or, they send us attachments we cannot open. A typical exchange:

Student: I emailed it to you.
Teacher: But it was nonsense.
Student: Don’t you have Mozilla Zippety CyberWolf Version 8.05(a)?

Modern students cannot print out a nice-looking paper copy that their old teachers can read with pleasure. They don't know what paper is. The saddest and most pathetic students are the ones without their tablets. Ha-Woon now walks around like he is in mourning; he might as well dress in black:

Ha-Woon: I couldn’t do my homework
Teacher: Why not?
Ha-Woon: My tablet is broken.
Teacher: Why?
Ha-Woon: I dropped it.
Teacher: Don’t you have a computer at home?
Ha-Woon: Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.

So, three days later, Hawoon-without-a-tablet brought his homework to me. Is it a nice-looking paper copy that I can read with pleasure? No! He handed me a thumb drive and said: here it is! I opened his thumb drive and found forty pictures of dogs.