introduction

Classrooms, like the institutions in which they are housed, aren't particularly easy to change. They're backed by centuries of tradition. Once built, classrooms have a long shelf life. Thus, discussions about reinventing classrooms are more apt to focus on reconfiguring bodies (into circles and so on) or rearranging inorganic objects, such as furniture (Mirtz, 2004) and desktop computers (Myers, 1993). Portable technologies have invigorated discussions of classroom space, however, by calling the need for a fixed place into question. The proliferation of wireless connectivity has signaled to some the obsolescence of conventional (wired computer) classrooms (Alexander, 2003; Strauss, 2003). Others maintain that physical campus settings like classrooms become even more crucial in the face of developing technologies. But we have not considered how the discursive structures surrounding the environments in which we teach with portable technologies can make these sites more or less hospitable to writing instruction.

Are otherwise traditional classrooms outfitted with laptop carts and wireless connections still just “classrooms”? Or has the “computer lab” now been distributed across campus? Are these places hybrids? Something else all together? This webtext grapples with naming these leaky places by considering metaphors that may be repurposed or created to describe wireless instructional settings. I unpack the computer lab(oratory) metaphor (arguably the most likely choice to be carried over from wired experience, as I explain) and the assumptions that accompany it, in part by sharing a story from my own experience. I also weigh the advantages and drawbacks of selecting other metaphors as names for new learning environments enabled by portable technologies. This analysis, I hope, will compel those reinventing traditional classrooms with laptops and wireless connections to recognize this move as an opportunity to rewrite these places in empowering ways.