(ite Fea WORE BOF pene Nee [EMAL Saag QYOLUTION OF 2 Ol Ratlcnent eo Figure 10.1: One person’s view of the changing landscape of communication. Reprinted with permission from Mike Keefe, The Denver Post, and InToon.com. Like the chalkboards of our school days, the best-technologies fade into the background—they “weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it” (Weiser, 1991, p. 94). The tools themselves evolve; our task as educators is to foreground communication while keeping abreast of the technologies that support it. If we focus on the tool but lose sight of the purpose, we are forever condemned to playing catch-up in a landscape of rapidly changing technology. Remember beepers? They enjoyed a brief popularity in the 1990s but became obsolete with the widespread use of cell phones. Few people use paging devices anymore because a new technology can fulfill a similar function more efficiently. Focusing on the tool at the expense of the purpose means that we shortchange our students. We risk failing to prepare our students to be 2Ist century learners who can adapt to new technology because they understand the collabora- tive, cooperative, and communicative purposes that underlie the tool. As architect Frank Lloyd Wright noted, “Form follows function.”