It is a great pleasure to introduce myself as your new Editor-in-Chief  of  Language Learning & Technology (alongside Dorothy Chun), taking over from Professor Trude Heift after almost 20 years of service, first as an AE, then as an Editor-in-Chief since 2014. I will do my utmost to honour her legacy. I first learned of LLT in 1999 as a graduate student at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. My professor and mentor Dr Hilde Hacquebord knew of my passion for educational technology and invited me to co-teach a course on CALL that I was supposed to be a student in (I don’t think this would happen in this day and age!). Because of this we were able to fund my attendance at Eurocall in Louvain (Belgium), my first international conference where there was a real buzz about this new (gasp!) online journal. Although online journals are now common, that was not the case back then. In fact, such newfangled curiousities were met with suspicion, even ridicule. Not so for LLT. The people who I looked up to as a student were actively writing for and referencing work in the journal. I have since been fortunate enough to contribute to the journal as an author, a reviewer, a special issue guest editor, an editorial board member, an associate editor and, since last year, as the editor of Voices from LLT, the journal’s podcast.
 
Now it is my privilege to join Dorothy as co-editor. This is a responsibility I do not take lightly. LLT is an increasingly rare light in the darkness of commercialised academia, still completely open access and not affiliated with any commercial publisher or company. It does not charge for accessing or publishing articles and thus acts as a truly valuable repository of knowledge and an opportunity for researchers worldwide.  It is my aim to preserve this legacy and find new ways to expand its reach.
 
In service,
Hayo