Abstract

The spatial dynamics of the Internet-networked computer classroom fundamentally alter the ways instructors and students use and perceive pedagogical space. Network connectivity exposes the indeterminacy of classroom space, distracting students, disorienting instructors and challenging their authority, and displacing a classroom's apparent centrality. Theorizing the spatiality of both traditional and networked class-rooms, however, reveals that both exhibit indeterminate spatial characteristics, but that network connectivity renders this indeterminacy visible. The Internet-networked classroom can be reestablished as center by having students (a) collaboratively analyze the Internet and approximate its demographics, (b) assert a presence on the Internet by creating personal web sites, and (c) design a class web site that can function as the classroom's social center in Cyberspace. These activities encourage students to become critical analysts rather than passive consumers of technology; however, instructors must design activities carefully, taking into account individual differences between students and the material conditions of their lives.

Citation

Kent-Drury, R. (1998). Finding a place to stand: Negotiating the spatial configuration of the networked computer classroom. Computers and Composition, 15(3), 387-407. Elsevier Ltd. Retrieved August 7, 2024 from https://www.learntechlib.org/p/87962/.

Keywords

• Classroom Design
• Classroom Environment
• Classroom Research
• Composition pedagogy
• computer mediated communication
• computers
• higher education
• Interior Space
• internet
• literacy
• postmodern theory space
• School Space
• Teacher Student Relationship
• Web Sites
• Writing (Composition)
• Writing for Publication
• Writing Instruction
• Writing Research