1. What is the current mission of teachers and scholars involved in computers and writing in light of technological advances and shifts in worldview relating to the purpose of education? 

We should/will be in the forefront of higher education in establishing creative combinations of synchronous/asynchronous interactions between students, students and teachers, as well as between the world-at-large and our students and ourselves. Add to this mix the importance of building a sense of a learning place--either corporeal or virtual--via an increasingly available mix of media, and it's clear that we are facing a rich research space with institutionally explosive implications. One example: we now often work in computer-supported labs, classrooms, and centers (technology-rich sites) that have been declared bankrupt by leading distance learning advocates (*Sir* John Sl Daniel, *Vice*-Chancellor Open University, UK). Shall we abandon these technology-rich sites to the onslaught of an entirely distributed educational system or should we begin to demonstrate the value of combined synchronous virtual/corporeal learning sites? 

2. What areas have shifted that may cause us to rethink our mission? 

We have a changing student body. Four-year college teachers tend to call this body of students nontraditional: they are often older, attending school part-time, working, are mothers and fathers, retired, poor, sometimes underprepared and from all segments of our society. Statistically, in most states they are now the most common students in higher education. In many states they make up from 60%-75% of the student population. Two-year and community colleges are often their first point of contact as they try to realize the theoretical dream of life-long learning. These institutions have long since recognized these realities and are, from my perspective, on the front lines of critical technical literacy education. The life situations of our most common students make the argument to save synchronous virtual/corporeal learning sites more difficult but not impossible. Four-year institutions have a good deal to learn from colleagues in two year and community colleges. 

3. Where is the electronic writing classroom headed pedagogically? 

We will be charging through media rhetorics that are hard to imagine with audiences real in ways that can be quite upsetting. Part of our planning will have to involve connecting our students with others and working hard not to exacerbate the gulf between technology haves and havenots. No easy task. 

4. Where do we want to be? 

We want to lead our institutions in an approach to education that is highly interactive, interpersonal, interdisciplinary whenever possible, and much more connected to the world outside our institutions. We should be helping determine distance learning objectives based on excellent pedagogy. 

5. How will computers help to promote and promulgate current composition theory? 

They continue to force us to look more closely at the theoretical assumptions of place and time in the learning/communicating processes of our students and ourselves. They make commonplace items come alive: the distance (physical & virtual) between the teacher and student and between other students, the workspace surrounding us (physical & virtual), the technologies of communication (from pencil to webpage), the fiscal environment surrounding the physical/virtual place, the institutional politics surrounding the fiscal environment. They allow us the opportunity to bring the common*place* of our teaching into focus. Now, how do we make time to attend to these newly uncommonplace issues as well as our disciplinary demands? 

Will new composition theory develop in light of educational technology? 

Yes.