Hey, there! Y'all know me. I'm that guy. You've seen me a thousand times before, but... whatever you think, trust me, it's wrong. I'm maddeningly complicated, and pathetically simple. I'm bored and listless and passionate and frantic. I'm warm and aloof, I love everybody but I want to be alone. I have missions and interests, and often I can't tell which is which. I love all forms of expression, but I don't trust any of them. So now that that's out of the way...

I love technology! Old and new, things I can understand  because I understand them, things I don't understand because--they can do THAT?! Cooool! I love the Leonardos, who can imagine things that won't be doable for hundreds of years, and yet are rooted in reality and anything but flights of fancy. I love the brilliantly simple solutions to maddeningly complex problems, and the complex solutions that stand on the shoulders of giants. I am amazed at the constant march of progress and the trail of obsolescence in its wake and am fascinated by the irreversible impacts of technology on society and culture, yet marvel at ancient technologies that stands the test of time.

Technology is already an integral part of learning, and teaching, and it always has been. But the pace of technological change in our time upends our assumptions and raises new challenges, because not only technology, but the way humans interface with the world is changing on a faster than generational basis. To teach students, one must know how those students assimilate information, and today, not only do they do this differently from their parents, they do it differently from their older siblings. Because teachers are generally a generation or more removed from their students, they are several technological generations removed.

I look to the 21st Century English Teaching course to provide tools for working within this altered reality, but more important, to offer flexible approaches to a pedagogic reality that will only continue to change.