The ideas presented in Distant Voices are ones that I find particularly interesting. The idea of using technology to enhance teaching, or even as a primary means of teaching, are ones that I believe will help students. As is pointed out in the article, the reason writing classes have remained so static has been the idea that the only way to be able to interact with a student in order to teach points such as grammar are face to face. However, the advancement of technology allows us to teach much that once had to be face to face.

Technology already has some acceptance as a means of enhancing instruction. In a course taught by myself and my former supervisor at the time we taught a class of foreign language teachers methods to use newly acquired iPods, and podcasting, in order to enhance their instruction. Still, there is this idea that technology is only meant as a supplement.

With new technologies such as webcams and even screen sharing software, some of which is bundled onto personal computers, teachers can interact with their students regardless of where they might be. They can even look at the text being written by a student and discuss with them changes that may need to be made. I have seen screen sharing such as this to help another person living an hour and a half away in Sonora with a website that they had been having trouble with, so even the problem of direct response and interaction with students becomes less of a problem. Podcasts and other multimedia outlets can allow teachers to not only supplement there classes but to provide entire sections of instruction for their students.

Another benefit of using these new technologies would be to allow students from distant locations to participate in a class which they want to take, but cannot travel to the location or because the class is simply not offered locally. Instead of being unable to attend that class they can attend in a virtual session or, in the world envisioned in the article, find all the class materials online for review.