It was 1988. I was up to my knees in paper. The walls of my office were festooned with vertical ribbons of taped together sheets of 8 ½ X 11 paper. The sheets were first taped to each other and then taped to the wall in long distracted ribbons that ran from the ceiling onto the floor. Many sheets were cut horizontally into ten or twenty individual strips and taped together, fractals of the longer streams. On many pages each typewritten line had been cut from a discarded page and taped into its current incarnation. At various junctures in these Frankenstienian constructs colored notes jutted from the edges of the paper streams. Large colored arrows and marks in seven different colors graffittied the pages--one color for each act. The margins of these schizo sheets were further covered with pencil and pen corrections.

The discarded pages of the ongoing revision of my first screenplay (length about 120 pages) lay scattered about the floor, and sticking crazily from the tops of these pages were bits of tape bearing pieces of cream wall paint. These paint thieving pieces peeked out at me--seeming to mock--from the discarded pages of my work. Often not content to survey my tortured progress they hindered me further by sticking to my clothes and to my bare feet.

My significant other, who was often afraid to actually enter my office, appeared in the doorway. He leaned against the doorjamb observing, his expression mild--perhaps mildly amused.

"You know, a computer does exactly what you're doing now--without all the mess."

"Get out of my office you taunter, you, you . . . fiend," I hollered. He knew I had to have the manuscript to the typist ($1.25 a page) by the following Monday-- this was Saturday morning--to submit this (first!) draft to the chair of my M.F.A. committee to meet his deadline.

After turning in the dread manuscript, and allowing myself to resume some modicum of normal behavior and thought, I went to the computer lab and begged for an introductory lesson. I spent several months of that semester learning to use the word processing capabilities of a Mac computer. I retyped my manuscript and saved it to a disk. This was all under the harried eyes of several tech people in the lab. I preferred to use the architecture lab because then it was the least busy of all the sites. Thus the techs had more time to help me straighten out my (horrifying) problems with the computer. Horrifying, because I had no knowledge beyond, push "this" button "that" happens, so my fear was that I'd hit the wrong button and forever erase all 120 pages of my manuscript. I was a wreck that whole semester.

Crazy woman, why did she wait so long? That's the question, right? I was a technophobe!

Raised on a farm in Oregon, a follower of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, a back to the land advocate, I feared that Big Blue was the precursor to Big Brother. I was afraid of the implications of this technical revolution, a revolution that seemed to totally oppose the philosophical revolution in which I was involved.

But, practicality before philosophy, I always say. The computer was a damnsight more convenient. Bill and I bought our first computer in 1988. I have never until now taken the time to go back and analyze the philosophic issues I grappled with then. I am delighted to be taking this class, and to have the opportunity to investigate not only those issues but new conundrums I have encountered as a teacher in the Electronic classroom.

At first, having my own computer was very scary, because I didn't have technical support at my fingertips as I had in the lab. I was always (and still am) afraid something will happen and I'll lose my work. As I continued in grad school, I was grateful for the computer, yet now I could not rely on the typist for corrections in grammar or punctuation, I had to rely only on myself and my computer--on my new software. The computer forced me to sharpen my skills--this was a good thing. I became more comfortable with the computer and with the software, but the hardware was still a mystery.

After my graduate work, I taught at Mesa Community college which in 1993 was just beginning its computer composition program. I received a certificate from them for participating in their first training class, but was really more confused about the process than enlightened, and would not have volunteered to teach a computer class then. I was too unsure of my technical skills. Yet it was obvious that being proficient in the computer classroom was going to become a hiring issue. I was on the job market, and dreading the question, "Do you have experience in a computer classroom?"

When I came back to A.S. U., I noticed that more and more of the work of the school, both in the classrooms and administrative offices, was turning toward computers. I wanted to keep up with what was current in our field. Although my experience at Mesa had not been encouraging, I signed up for the first A.S.U. computer composition training course developed by Janet Bacon and Kelly Truitt. They made it fun, and took much of the anxiety out of the prospect of teaching in the electronic classroom. Nevertheless, I still didn't know much either pedagogically or technically. I had not defined my goals for the computer classroom, or examined how they differed, or if they differed from the goals of the traditional classroom.

Now, after teaching for four years in the computer classroom, I have three main concerns. First, the philosophic and political implications of technical literacies. Second, whether or not, computers in the classroom improve student learning, and if so how. My third concern is how to improve my teaching in the electronic classroom. I arranged these issues in a hierarchal order, yet some days, my third concern would come first, and my first, last. Their order usually depends on the challenges I've encountered in my computing life that day.

In reflecting on my personal relationship with the computer, I find our relationship has been both blissful and horrifying. Blissful because as a writer I am much more prolific and can better express what I want to communicate. This is mainly because of the ease and speed of editing and revision, the features and tools of the current word processing programs. Neither do I have to wade through the mocking oceans of paper anymore. I like the intimacy of the computer world. I like to be able to go to my desk and access my whole body of work with a flick of keys, speak to my students and colleagues through networks, and have the web available as a research tool. I like the element of adventure, the fear and trembling as I approach a new software program.

It's horrifying mainly because I've never slowed down long enough to learn more about the technical side of computers--how they work. My technical knowledge is still on the order--only a little better now--of push "this" button, and "that" happens. Yet, there is a light moment in my personal horror film, exactly because of the situation this button pusher mentality creates. For me, computers caused a breakthrough in to a new method of learning. The computer was so convenient that I forced myself to use the machine though it is an abstract--an abstract that I do not understand. I say a breakthrough, because I experienced Math in much the same way as I do computers. In the seventh grade after I'd asked Mr. Bennet, the math teacher "Why?" he'd replied, "you don't need to know why. That's just the way it is, and that's all you need to know." I could not go forward in math because of that statement.

Without having a frame of reference for the equation, I could not/would not proceed because I didn't have anything to relate the knowledge to. He was asking me to take something on faith, grab a disembodied piece of information and use it. It was too hard a task for me then. I developed a math/abstract thinking block. For me then, computers, unless one understood the hardware, were much the same. All one needed to understand was that "it" worked that way. Because I so much wanted to become proficient with computers, I overcame a block. I could bridge a gap and think more abstractly. I had to do this, because I wanted something and the only way I was going to get it was to have faith that if I pushed "this" button, I would get "that" result. Though it helped me dissolve a barrier of my own, I still don't like this aspect of computer use. I'd like to know more, but I don't have the time to become accomplished at everything I want to do within my own area of work, much less the realm of computer technology.

In the beginning I relied heavily on technical support people. I sometimes still struggle against this reliance as it made me feel that my brain (my work) was controlled by all powerful technical geniuses, and only "they"could solve my computer problems when I developed them. Only they could intelligently advise me of the latest "have to have" technology, only they could save me from the dread "data loss," the irretrievable error message. Isn't it also these techs who will have to save us from complete loss of control as we approach the year 2000 and rely on them to "fix" all our problems and keep society running? It's a small concern now, but in the beginning these issues were my big fear. Smaller niggling worries harassed me too. For example, those "technical support" people charged a lot of money, usually by the hour, yet some of them weren't too good. They sometimes took hours to fix a problem and when I mentioned this to someone else "in computers" they'd say, "oh, that should have taken ten minutes. S/He was just making a few bucks."

Visions of my old typist would float unbidden before my eyes and I felt that these new computer techs had me in the same ways my typist had, only much worse. I became paranoid! I reverted to fears of Big Brother. To allay these fears I pictured myself leading the new revolution . . .

C'mon citizens! Are they doctors, priests--the new shamans of the 21^st century-- computer gurus of a new religion or the innovators of a new politics? Shall we bow down and pay them big bucks, or shall we educate ourselves in the abstract ways of the new technology? (And--how do we begin to educate our students regarding these issues, given our short time with them and the many elemental tasks we must teach?) I asked, what if we don't educate ourselves in the technical aspects and instead rely on these experts, doesn't that lead to a new level of power and control of society and if so, isn't this leading right back to, if not the actuality, at least the closer possibility of, Big Brother? These issues were buggin' me, but I could see the floor of my office, and I had a virtual world at my fingertips.

Then from the depths of my fevered brain, a coherent thought arose. Plumbers! If you need a plumber, don't you just look in the yellow pages and hire one? I'd think of my tech's as electricans, plumbers. Whew! That's a load off.

Anyway, now I think (hope) I've come to a more balanced relationship with my computer. I respect what it allows me to do, but it is just another of the tools I have to work with. I know it will change our society. Someone pointed out to me that when automatic washing machines were invented they were marketed as labor saving devices. In fact, the washing machine rather than necessarily saving labor, upped our standards of cleanliness. Instead of washing twice a month, some men and women washed every day. I think that the use of computers may do the same for written communication--we'll write more and hopefully with more practice, better. I'm all for this. I also believe that computers will surely change print culture which was/is the standard. It will surpass, change, and add to it in ways we can't yet guess. Then like the print culture that electronic culture may replace, it will be replaced . . .

So finally, I'm into it for the adventure. I want to see what it's capable of, keep up with what's happening, and see how creatively I can use this evolving machine.