As educators in the 21st century, we will be preparing students for careers that have yet to exist.  Our students will be using and inventing complex technologies that we can't even begin to fathom, and will be living in a world more connected and global than we could ever think possible.  In order to effectively prepare our learners for their futures, we must be prepared to use technology to communicate and connect with our students.  We must help them learn to navigate the massive amount of materials barraging them on a daily basis.  And we must make our content learning relevant to the technological nature of the world they are surrounded by.  Instead of a continual disconnect between a non-academic technology and information drenched 'reality',  and the 'reality' of their sterilized academic experiences, I want my students to see technology as a tool connecting them as global learners to people, ideas and experiences next door and thousands of miles away.


As an English teacher I want to prepare students for the kind of communication that goes beyond printed books and double-spaced essays.  They need to be able to interact with blogs, videos, multi-media art forms and presentations, and other growing fields of communication and idea sharing.   I want them to see technology as a way to "get ideas and give ideas", as the well-abused middle school slogan promotes.  In order to prepare them for a future of success and fulfillment, students need to be armed and equipped for a technologically obsessed world.