Always looking for a new context and experience, I decided to be brave the next semester and go for the entire term in a computer classroom. Knowing that there would be no way to adjust all my class assignments to a room configured in a succession of rows, I opted for a W-shaped room with a row of computers aligned down both walls and two rows set down the middle of the room, perpendicular to the front of the class. This semester was not as positive an experience as before. It became impossible to have any thoughtful class discussion. The two rows down the middle of the class separated the students so that neither side could hear nor see the other. Even when they did speak, the loud hum of the computers kept me from hearing them very well. I always had to have them repeat themselves. All of these tendencies have been reported by many others, but one observation made by the likes of Faigley, Selfe, Kemp, Bernhardt and Hawisher and Pemberton struck me as particularly problematic [#]. The most annoying part was the student's tendency to completely ignore me when I tried to engage in a dialogue with them. Many would be transfixed by the computer screen; some surfed, some did e-mail, and some even plugged in headphones and listened to CDs. I've always had great rapport with my students and that was the case with this class. But that didn't seem to overcome the allure of the computer screen. At first I thought surely my discomfort was one of resentment. How dare they? But I soon began to consider the possibility that there was more at stake here than simple pride. I could not ignore the fact that this technology and the way it was ordered was structuring my students in a particular way.