A bit of a leap, but related nonetheless

Yesterday, my students read David Foster Wallace's commencement address to the 2005 graduates of Kenyon College. Today, I read a friend's blog entry that happened to be expressing very similar sentiments. While this is neat, it isn't necessarily a "technology in the classroom" topic. Then again, it is. Kenyon College is in Ohio, I'm in Minnesota. The speech was delivered orally in May of 2005, roughly three and a half years ago. Were I teaching ten, fifteen years ago, I would not only lack the transcript-from-a-video-recording, I wouldn't even know the speech had been delivered. The Internet may not be a "latest and greatest" topic, but it is certainly one that brought a relevant, real-world text to my jaded, yearning-for-a-break (we still have two days of classes) seniors. My students had substantive, thought-provoking discussion this morning because the internet brought a college commencement address into their world. Sometimes, it's the "simple" things that enrich the classroom the most.