M Thomas Apple Author Page

How has it not?

I’m a TESOL teacher. Learning to use technology — appropriately — has always been a part of my job.

It’s the “appropriate” part that has difficult to deal with the past few years.

Yeah. Hi, Chat.

Forget about Zoom, LMS, video editing software, and all sorts of online sites that don’t need any knowledge of programming language.

I was making my own web pages in basic HTML and JavaScript back when people still though InternetExplorer was a good browser.

But tech is nothing more than a tool. And tools can be used well and badly.

And often the simple tech of a piece of paper and a pencil are all you need. No bandwagon mentality here.

So if anything I would say that, although I have always used technology to some degree for my job, I have had the luxury of experience (and a lot of mistakes!) to figure out when technology can help my job, and when it just gets in the way.

(FWIW I also teach a one-semester class about language, identity, and technology. And yes, we do analyze our selfies.)