Thirteenth Computers and Writing Conference 1997

Kapi'olani Community College
4-9 June 1997



Friends@Help.Net: Six Women Create an Electronic Support Community

Principal Contact:
Claudine Keenan, Penn State Allentown
Team Members:
Wendy Greenstein, Long Beach City College
Susan Lossen-Faulkner, Dallas County Community College
Brigit Sparling, Monmouth College

Ever since the first WELL sprang up, virtual communities have formed around special interest groups, have risen and swelled as their members surfed the swift current of electronic communication, and inevitably, have trickled off to a thin tributary reminder of their original flow. But throughout the organic evolution of these communities, the exchanges between human beings, mediated by the machines, reveal that they serve a purpose in our daily existence that cannot be met in any other fashion. Friends@help.net is our playful name for the relationship that has grown between six women across the nation whose backgrounds vary wildly, but whose interests intersect in many ways that we are still discovering through our online exchanges.

Major Themes:

Brief Description of Project Sites

Alabama--Chella Courington
California--Wendy Greenstein
Illinois--Brigit Sparling
Pennsylvania--Claudine Keenan
Texas--Susan Lossen-Faulkner
Virginia--Wilkie Leith

Success Stories

The Humble Beginning: An Email Message from California

The First Technology Bond: We Create ListServ

The Progress Reports:

  • Finding friends in administration
  • Visiting nearby innovators in CMC
  • Starting a technology newsletter
  • Getting a new computer lab
  • Sharing our published work online
  • Creating a conference proposal for CWC
  • Sharing teaching strategies in the computer class

    Survival Stories

    The New Semester: Teaching with Technology Speedbumps

    Tough Lessons: Learning about PowerPoint 7.0/4.0 Conversions

    Try, Try, Again: Trying to MOO, and Getting Very Close

    Is it Catching? Surviving Virus Epidemics on Campus

    Why do We Need Computers to Teach Writing: Answering Title III questions

    Support Stories

    Coping with Personal Tragedy & Pink Ribbons for us all

    Teaching, teaching, teaching

    Buying laptops

    Downloading files

    Friendship, travels, films, books

    Activity:

    Participants will join a MOO brainstorming session around the prompt:
    How can we all build cybercommunities to help foster our continued professional growth?

    Some suggestions that we'll explore:

    Participants can record their own email addresses into the MOO session and receive a log of the entire activity to their own email accounts later in the day.

    Principal Contact:
    Claudine Keenan
    cgk4@psu.edu
    Penn State Allentown
    8380 Mohr Lane
    Fogelsville PA 18051
    (610) 285-5116

    Team Members:
    Chella Courington
    ccouring@HUNTINGDON.EDU
    Associate Professor, Dept. of Languages and Literature
    Huntingdon College
    1500 E. Fairview Ave.
    Montgomery, AL 36106
    (334) 833-4435
    (334) 270-0939

    Wendy Greenstein
    wgreens@ix.netcom.com
    Professor of English, Long Beach City College
    Long Beach CA 90808
    (310) 938 4497
    (310) 433 3816

    Wilkie Leith
    wleith@osf1.gmu.edu
    George Mason University
    Fairfax, VA 22030
    (703)993-1569.

    Susan Lossen-Faulkner
    susanf@ix.netcom.com
    Dallas County Community College
    Dallas, TX

    Brigit Sparling
    BRIGIT@WPOFF.MONM.EDU
    Monmouth College
    Monmouth, IL 61462
    (309) 457-2131

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