ATTW Bulletin

Web 2.0 technologies have clearly taken hold of early twenty-first-century culture, and some technologies, such as social networking sites, have also exerted their influence on higher education, including the teaching and learning of college composition. O'Reilly (2005) conceded that there is still a significant amount of disagreement and criticism of Web 2.0 as both a term and a concept; however, he also noted the staggering number of references to it, a number that today stands at close to 100 million in Google and approaching 1000 in Google Scholar.

The main features of the Web 2.0 movement and Web 2.0 technologies, according to O'Reilly and others (Downes, 2005; Addison, 2006; Alexander, 2006; Thomas, 2006), include the use of the Web rather than the personal computer as the main platform for work. As such, Web 2.0 has shifted the focus from working locally to working in a networked setting, in which the Web is seen as a social, collaborative, and collective space. Other features consist of viewing the Web as an intelligence and information source resulting in new forms of organization, such as folksonomies or tag clouds, treating web users as co-developers and recognizing the influence of the Web on software applications as services rather than products, including the innovative re-implementations and combinations of software applications designed to enhance users' experiences. The focus of the Web 2.0 movement is on users, devices beyond the personal computer, and uses beyond the individual workstation. These concepts would appear to have application in the teaching of composition due to the iterative, unfinished but always updatable nature of writing now evident on the web and in software development, especially with regard to open-access materials and open-source environments.

This special issue examines the theoretical, practical, and pedagogical issues of the Web 2.0 movement for the teaching of writing. The issue highlights implementations on Web 2.0 technologies as well as considers the Web 2.0 movement as a direction for thinking about the locus of our work in composition studies. Questions to consider include the following:

How should we define Web 2.0 thinking in the context of composition, and how has it influenced the development of Web 2.0 applications?
How are Web 2.0 applications being used as educational tools in composition and to what effect? How can they be improved in the future?
How do our uses of Web 2.0 applications fit or not fit within existing institutional and educational structures (e.g. technology and curriculum planning), and how might our uses change those structures?

The guest editors invite proposals that answer these questions regarding the Web 2.0 movement and its influence on the teaching of composition. Proposals should be one page, single-spaced (approximately 500 words).

Deadline for submission of proposals is 1 January 2008. Please send proposals via email to Randall McClure randall.mcclure@mnsu.edu . Queries are welcome.

Final manuscripts will be 15-30 pages in length, double-spaced. Manuscript deadline for accepted abstracts is 1 December 2008.

For more information, visit http://computersandcomposition.osu.edu/cfps.html#Web20 .