A Message From the President

May 2008

What's Not to Love

Everywhere we turn we see examples of how everyday life has been altered by recently developed technology: There are fit-in-your-pocket computers with Wi-Fi, hybrid cars, MP3 players, and even GPS in your PDA! What’s next? Digital-only television broadcasting, that’s what (keep reading This Active Life for updates on that). Can those flying cars and jet packs, so long a part of our popular imagination, be far behind? LOL!

Read this issue’s cover story to see how some of your peers are using today’s technologies to enrich their lives, whether it’s a personal quest to research a family tree or a very public project like a blog.

And I‘d like to offer a suggestion on how we can all use technology in a meaningful way this summer: by campaigning for the pro-public education presidential candidate.

I don’t need to remind you what’s at stake this fall: the future of No Child Left Behind, the fate of Social Security and Medicare, and our next move in Iraq for starters. The stakes for seniors and for public education are far too great for us to sit back and just let events unfold as they will.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a time to ask not what technology can do for you, but what you can do with technology.

Nothing can replace talking to friends and neighbors in person. But we can complement familiar grassroots techniques with cyberadvocacy. NEA has a great new entry point for getting involved in Election ’08: Go to www.nea.org/educationvotes to see what other NEA members are doing on the campaign trail and find fun ways to get involved. Use NEA’s Legislative Action Center (www.nea.org/lac) to send e-mails to members of Congress and keep up-to-date on issues affecting seniors and educators. Advocate for public education this fall and always!

We may not have those flying cars yet, but we have everything we need to make a difference in Election ’08.

—Barbara Matteson
matteson@dakotacom.net