The Web is Changing

The increased commercialization of the Internet, specifically the Web, has spawned
some troubling inventions and prompted needed interventions by educators. The Web is
big business, and our online communications and interactions and the data they leave
behind are commodified by big business. Large-scale data aggregators, natural language
systems that code and collect billions of posts, and tracking systems that follow our
every click have fundamentally changed the spaces and places in which we compose,
create, interact, research, and teach.

At the 2015 Computers & Writing conference, the contributors of this webtext spoke in
a Town Hall on topics ranging from the histories, theories, methods, and practices associated
with activism, assessment, education, gaming, and scholarship. The session was well
attended and garnered a lively conversation during the question-and-answer session
between the speakers and the audience.

In response to the rich discussion during the Q&A, Kairos Editor Cheryl Ball invited
the contributors to develop this webtext for the 20th anniversary issue of the journal.
What follows are lengthened treatments of the presentations delivered in May 2015 with
an afterword by contributor Laura Gonzales and Town Hall participant Dànielle Nicole DeVoss.