Hello and welcome to Teaching in the Age of Digital Reproduction. My name is Martin Tanner and this is my third and final year on the Masters of Adult Literacy and Numeracy Education.

I have been working in adult education since 1996, when I moved to China to take up a post in a teacher training college. My interest in andragogy stems from those two years of struggling to teach methodology while learning how to teach on the job.

I have since worked in Cambodia, on capacity building programmes with rural teachers, in London as an assistant director of studies in a large ESOL college, in Ireland training on TEFL courses to recent graduates and, since 2008, in workplace literacy and numeracy here in NZ.

Throughout these years I have always felt that the effectiveness of the learning experience is derived from the interaction of the teacher and the learner. In some ways, I have always been suspicious of digital technologies in learning. Perhaps there is an element of protectionism here - jealously guarding the role of the human being in the construction and transmission of knowledge at the point where it seems to matter most: face-to-face. 

I aim to put aside any dystopian fears and develop my understanding of the role of on-line teaching for adult literacy and numeracy education. I will use this blog as a means to that end.