Electronic Conferencing in the Networked Classroom

Abstract

The sign outside the Center for Hu manities and Language Comput ing at The University of Texas at Austin cautions, Please Do Not Dis turb, Class in Progress. But if one were to venture into associate professor John Slatin's 20th-century Poetry seminar, it's unlikely that anyone would even no tice. Fourteen undergraduates sit peer ing into computer terminals that line the walls. The classroom is eerily silent save for the hum of IBM-PC fans and the clicking of keyboards. There is an occa sional burst of laughter, but even that doesn't seem to faze the other students; nor does it faze Professor Slatin, who sits among them, typing at his own ter minal. Looking over a student's shoulder, one would find that there is some sort of conversation taking place. Short mes sages appear in succession on the screen, each bearing the name of the sender; some are addressed to specific class mates, others to Dr. Slatin. The student scrolls through the dia logue, pauses to read, and then taps a two-key command, invoking a message window that fills the top third of the screen. There, she types a message of her own. Once finished, she taps another couple of keys, and the message window