"The medium is the message."    Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964

Marshall McLuhan could have had little idea how profound his statement would become as we move onward into the 21st Century and an increasingly technological era. McLuhan's concepts of the global village have resonated through decades and never have his words held such weight as when we examine the impact of technology on our communication processes.

Our past conferences themes of accountability, civility and listening, cannot be examined fully without examining the impact of media on those issues. As we examine media, the term Morphology: a study of structure or form; the system of word-forming elements and processes in a language, provides us a framework with which to examine media's impact on our communication processes.

Therefore, our 2008 TSCA conference challenges its members to share their ideas on the impact of media on our communication processes through creating programs that:

• Address the various forms of media for instructional delivery.
• Examine how mediated communication such as e-mail, instant messaging, text messaging, and text messaging, impact our interpersonal & organizational communication.
• Investigate the impact of user generated content formats such as: You Tube, My Space, Wikipedia, virtual worlds and blogs on our social interaction and classroom instruction.
• Assess the impact of media in mass communication, popular culture, pedagogy and curriculum development.
• Examine the impact of various forms of media in a global society.
• Discuss ways to assess the necessary changes for our political, social and legal structures to keep pace with the rapid changes in technology including issues dealing with plagiarism, censorship, privacy and security in an educational environment.
• Suggest ways that TSCA can increase awareness of the impact of technology and a full understanding of its impact on our communication processes.