Conclusion

Understanding the role of the spectator-participant, I believe, is crucial to understanding how learning occurs in networked computer environments. Spectating and participating are not new for writing classrooms; however, the computer setting radically alters the student’s experience of each.

This detailed description of just “where” students are when they sit before a computer screen and the roles they engage in has been a first step in my own larger project to understand how collaborative learning and social construction of knowledge happen in the computer-networked environment. Before I conclude the paper, let me share some of the things I believe are going on inside the students’ heads as they spectate and participate:

--multiplicity: exposure to many viewpoints and ideas

--comparability: from self to others and others to others

--evaluation: judgments often based on comparability

--normalizing: multiplicity and comparability give larger perspective

--self-acquisition: knowledge assembled and selected by self

--conformity: students participate so as to conform to the group

--application: students apply normalized knowledge

These activities and experiences of students engaged in student-to-student are only speculative at this point. There may be more.

If this description of the spectator-participant has interested you, I invite you to join me in this research endeavor. My research methods, I know, are crude, and my research literature scant, but I have an excellent laboratory in which to investigate. I am excited to apply some ideas from Reader Response Theory and theories related to drama to this spectator-participant role. Thank you for considering my ideas, and I encourage you to contact me at any time. (Lirvin@accd.edu)

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