I am pleased to welcome you to the newly re-organized Southwest Association for Language Learning Technology. SWALLT is a grass-roots organization of educators, students, and others who are interested and involved with the use of technology in language instruction. Our members include faculty, staff and administrators from K-12 to university, as well as government and private language training institutions. We are volunteers who have organized together to assist anyone who must deal with the many demands and challenges that today's technology brings to the teaching of language in the classroom, laboratory, or at home. Many of our members are instructors who want to keep up with the best methods for effective and efficient teaching. Others are directors or supervisors of language laboratories or resource centers, who struggle to keep up with changing demands and technology. A few of us are developers of hardware and software designed to improve the teaching of language. SWALLT is also a regional group of the International Association for Language Learning Technology, a world-wide organization of similar volunteers who attempt to provide broader services and resources to the language technologist, who is often a singular specimen at many colleges and schools.

For those of you who knew us as SALT, we are back to work again with a new name and expanded territory. The name change from SALT to SWALLT was precipitated by the discovery that SALT is a trademark of the Society for Applied Learning Technology, a national association with goals similar to ours, but not focused on language learning alone. To avoid confusion, it was thought best to change our name. It also seemed a good way to signal our new regional affiliation when the Mountain States Association for Language and Technology was disbanded, adding Utah to the original membership from Arizona, California, Hawaii, and Nevada.

Our formal re-organization actually took place last year in Houston at the IALLT 2001 conference. We've struggled a bit to get things going, but succeeded in holding a marvelous spring meeting in conjunction with the 4th Digital Stream conference held at California State University, Monterey Bay. We are now planning our fall meeting at the University of Nevada, Reno and hope you will join us there the weekend of October 18th. Elsewhere in this newsletter are the formal report of our re-organization, list of officers, call for papers, instructions on how to join the SWALT-L list, some introductions, and other information about the organization that we hope you will find useful. If you are a long-time member we hope you will continue to re-invigorate SWALLT with your talent and expertise. We invite you to contribute to the fall conference, this newsletter, and the organization as you see fit. If you are new, the same invitation is yours, but with the assurance that you are among friends who are eager to get to know you and learn what you have to teach us. For even if you think you know next to nothing, your very questions and fresh point of view will benefit us all.

My thanks to Pat Miller who has been the "heart" of SWALLT organization this past year, and to Carol Reitan for taking on the editorship of SWALLT Online (formerly SALT Talks). I also wish to thank the former officers and members of SALT for their good work. I look forward to working with the new SWALLT team and serving you, the individual member. Please feel free to contact me with your suggestions, comments and criticisms.

Harold H. Hendricks,
SWALLT President