by Christopher Dean, Will Hochman, Carra Hood, and Robert McEachern

INTRODUCTION: Node I
By Will Hochman

It seems humans want the best of technology without having to look at it, or what it does, closely. Though wireless technology makes a great pun about how it improves our ability to be "wired," not everyone is laughing. In this collaborative hypertext, four English professors explore their learning curves in a newly created, wireless, laptop-equipped classroom. Our research and writing was guided by these four questions.

• What happens when a state school (with a significant population of blue collar, first generation college learners) creates a wireless laptop lab for first-year composition as a way to teach critical, traditional and technological literacies?
• Does adopting cutting edge computer technology mean that you get to cut through the problems that other folks experienced when setting up desktop computer labs, or does its adoption lead to different and more painful "cutting of teeth?"
• How does an English department leap from almost no involvement with computers and writing to a state-of-the-art laptop lab?
• How do two very important technological advances (i.e., smaller hardware and increased computing mobility) affect pedagogy and identity in computerized writing classes?
• Why go wireless?

Addressing, in one way or another, all of the above questions are four teachers from Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU). All four authors write about the pedagogical and theoretical issues affecting them in their new classroom during the 2002-03 school year. This ground breaking work has produced a working model for SCSU's computer use across the curriculum, and a second SCSU English wireless laptop classroom was just completed. Here's the hypertext breakdown by author:

• Introduction: By Will Hochman
• The Humanizing Effects of Wireless Laptops: By Bob McEachern
• Exuberance and the Failure to Learn Their Names: By Carra Hood
• The Many Colored Coat of the Emperor: By Christopher Dean
• Why Wireless Laptops: By William Hochman

Finally, before ending this introduction, we wish to briefly thank a number of people who have made this paper, and the work at its center, possible. We are grateful to Al Chai, Joe Brignola, and the folks at Academic Computing at SCSU for their support and guidance. We are grateful for the support of our colleagues in the English Department at SCSU and the understanding of our students while we and they learned how to write in our new computerized writing space. And last, but certainly not least, we are grateful to Beth Hewett, Cheryl Ball, and Leah Cassorla for their expert guidance and kind and steady hands; without their editing, encouragement, and understanding, this piece would not be complete.

Node Two of the Introduction