When Nick Carbone sent an email message out to the ACW listserv about reviewing OWLs for the Spring 1998 issue of KAIROS, Dr. Joan Latchaw, a UNO professor, had a rush of adrenalin. The opportunity to write for a real audience and contribute to an ongoing academic conversation seemed ideal-especially for a course in Rhetoric. Being a negotiator, Dr. Latchaw presented this option to the class, for it would mean altering the syllabus, some class projects, grades, and deadlines. The class took on the challenge. In a brainstorming session, some students expressed their excitement about this "fantastic learning experience," which might prove a valuable resource for prospective teachers, though others said they would never incorporate OWLs as part of their pedagogy.
The intimidation of new technologies and depersonalization (lack of face-to-face interaction) were mitigating factors. Most of the students in Rhetoric are Secondary Education majors, specializing in Language Arts or English, so the review will be determined by the effectiveness of OWLs from the perspective of both students and prospective teachers. The last short writing assignment addresses issues relevant to the OWL project: theories of error, comparisons of online and print handbooks, writing center theory, pedagogies informing OWLs. Throughout the term, the class collaborated with Nick, the review editor for the Spring issue of KAIROS. Together, we decided to focus on OWLs most useful to the general Internet user. We divided into small work groups, evaluating and analyzing ease of navigation, quality of handouts, efficiency and effectiveness of online tutoring, and "extra" OWL features such as MOOs.