Advocates the use of wide-area networking systems (WANS) by English departments to bring the whole world's public discourse into classrooms. Maintains English departments need people who speak the language of networking technology to understand how it can support or defeat pedagogical goals, and to garner computing resources. Offers a brief…

Explains the visual and computing demands of Web-site authoring in a junior level, undergraduate honors course at a large public university. Argues that the students in this course--highly literate and skilled in the production of conventional printed academic writing--performed much like basic writers when challenged with acquiring a broad set of…

Addresses how first-year students understand the influence of computers by cultural assumptions about technology. Presents three meaning perspectives on technology that students expressed based on formative experiences they have had with it. Discusses implications for how computers and composition scholars incorporate computer technology into…

Traces the early history of the electronic digital computer and the viewpoints held concerning the computer from its inception to its present status. Highlights three key words ("mimesis,""topic," and "decorum") to develop the rhetoricality of the personal computer as a communications device. (KEH)

Offers an overview and schema for understanding frequently used network technologies available for Online Writing Labs (OWLs)--electronic mail, gopher, World Wide Web, newsgroups, synchronous chat systems, and automated file retrieval systems. Considers ways writing centers' choices among these technologies are impacted by user access, network…

Argues against the fractured view of literacy as a set of unrelated skills, and suggests that thinking and writing about computers could provide a means for students to see literacy from a broad-based interdisciplinary perspective. Describes a graduate course designed to explore connections between computers and literacy. (KEH)