 I feel like I should clear something up about technology use right away. You don't need to use technology to be a good teacher. You need to build good relationships with your students to be a good teacher, but you don't necessarily need to do that through Facebook or Twitter or MySpace or something. I use technology in my classroom not because it's shiny and exciting and smells good when you take it out of the box, but because it offers a solution to specific problems I encounter with my students. For example, one problem I have is that I'm not invincible and sometimes I get sick. This means I have to stay home instead of going to school to teach kids about physics. And as it turns out, it's really difficult to find a physics sub, so put yourself in the shoes of my students. Depending on how you feel about physics, you're either a. Looking forward to a day of resting relaxation, updating your tumbler on your phone all class, or b. You're wallowing in a pit of despair because your favorite teacher is nowhere to be found and you can't figure out these physics problems by yourself. Enter YouTube. I started making YouTube videos of me solving physics problems three years ago so that my students would have something to watch while I was away from school. The students watch the videos, either on their phones or as a class in the projector, and then they try similar problems to the ones I went through digitally. This, coupled with a textbook and additional instruction and the substitute teacher, is usually enough support for the students to be able to pick up a concept without me there. Of course, there's always questions, but the kids can leave those in the video comments or tweet them to me. The concept has expanded to nearly 40 videos since then. Now, I'll post videos for students to study from and to keep them from asking me the same question over and over and over again. 11,000 video views and emails from people all around the world show that it must be working, at least partially. And while there are lots of people who make videos about solving physics problems on YouTube, I take solace in the fact that mine are better. Not for everyone, but for my students, because we have a relationship. And that's what teaching is all about.