The mere cadence of
your cryptic email,
languishing in
abstract separation,
threw my tended world
into disrepair.

There were words,
chunked into sentences,
severed with punctuation,
and driven by raw loneliness.

You were reaching out
precisely as I was looking in,
digging for meaning
in this refuse of memory,
making purpose from lost connections,
transversing this digital divide.

2008 might find me here, nesting,
something 2007 wouldn’t even acknowledge,
with its sharp turns, adventures, and vibrancy.

2009 might find us together. It just might.

By Michael Gallagher

My name is Michael Sean Gallagher. I am a Lecturer in Digital Education at the Centre for Research in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh. I am Co-Founder and Director of Panoply Digital, a consultancy dedicated to ICT and mobile for development (M4D); we have worked with USAID, GSMA, UN Habitat, Cambridge University and more on education and development projects. I was a researcher on the Near Futures Teaching project, a project that explores how teaching at The University of Edinburgh unfold over the coming decades, as technology, social trends, patterns of mobility, new methods and new media continue to shift what it means to be at university. Previously, I was the Research Associate on the NERC, ESRC, and AHRC Global Challenges Research Fund sponsored GCRF Research for Emergency Aftershock Forecasting (REAR) project. I was an Assistant Professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (한국외국어대학교) in Seoul, Korea. I have also completed a doctorate at University College London (formerly the independent Institute of Education, University of London) on mobile learning in the humanities in Korea.

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