How did educators come to rely networked computers and find themselves sitting before iridescent screens with their hands pecking keyboards like blind chickens? Why have we submitted to this form of bondage? Perhaps a backward glance one initiation story - Mr. Burniske's - will suggest an answer to this riddle, while helping computer-literate educators envision the future. IT WAS TIME to stop when the garbage can bulged. That's what I thought one evening a decade ago, as I restored the files my computer's hard disk. Sometimes I wonder why I didn't hold myself to that vow, which would've spared me the nuisance of hardware and software upgrades, not to mention the anxiety - baseless, as it turned out - of Y2K. Ironically, it is often because of such complications, not in spite of them, that we find ourselves thinking about educational technology. This may explain why, despite surviving millennial madness and Y2K locusts, I still cling to the memory of that dreadful rite of passage 10 years ago. I can't shake it - or the suspicion that we're suffering a serious delusion if we think our technological problems vanished the moment we stepped across the threshold of the 21st century. It seems appropriate, therefore, to ask a few critical questions before memories of the 20th century fade. We might begin with this one: How did educators come to rely networked computers and find themselves sitting before iridescent screens with their hands pecking keyboards like blind chickens? Why have we submitted to this form of bondage? Perhaps a backward glance one initiation story will suggest an answer to this riddle, while helping computer-literate educators envision the future. * * * In the beginning there was the Word. Microsoft Word 1.0, that is. Like millions of other classroom practitioners, I didn't know the difference between an operating system and a software application, a modem and a mouse, when I purchased my first personal computer. Nor did I plan giving such distinctions much thought or squandering time fretting over a hard disk that served me without incident for three years. I had quickly grown accustomed to its operating system and the software applications I acquired along the way. Consequently, I expected to use the computer as a glorified typewriter, tapping perhaps 10% of its potential. This upsets computer jocks, I know, because they're always straining to discover new uses for the machine, but as a writer and teacher I was more interested in tapping my brain's potential. I preferred thinking about my destinations - including short stories, course syllabi, student assignments, and personal letters - rather than the vehicle. The less visible the vehicle, I thought, the less chance there was for it to distract me from my purpose. Unfortunately, the bomb icon, indicating that a serious system error had occurred, shattered the illusion of an invisible medium. I could no longer through this medium and focus my work; the time had come to at it as well. What I had formerly shoved to the background had suddenly jumped to the foreground. I didn't like this. I didn't appreciate the way this writing tool interfered with my reading and writing, calling attention to itself a time when I wanted to think about other matters. It was there to serve me, I thought, not to be a nuisance. Why wouldn't it just leave me alone and let me do what I wanted? Beneath the frustration and the misdirected anger, however, lurked a subtle truth that I couldn't deny: while I had been that computer, it had also been working on me. This forced a personal admission, as well as a hard look the computer's influence. Like many computer novices, I had allowed my hands and mind to reach outward, groping for that which the logo the base of the computer subtly recalled. The logo, a multicolored apple, sat there while I opened and closed files, concentrating my destination rather than the vehicle that helped me get there. …