The Real Value of the Net: A Playground for Hopeful Monsters
  Eric Crump
NCTE
eric@interversity.com

Abstract:  The most important thing about the internet is the way it transforms communication? Nope. The way it transforms publication? Nope. The way it transforms commerce? Nope. The way it transforms education? Nope. The most important thing about the internet is the fact that it has provided a new place to play. Play is what generates all those other transformations.
Play allows us the social space to enact what we can imagine, becoming mutants, of a sort, "hopeful monsters" to borrow a term from Kevin Kelly.  I'll tell a few tales of playing around I've done, the weird changes that play has provoked in me as a teacher, and the hope I cling to that playing on the net will save the day for education.