Everyone, Please excuse a little context setting before I get to my question below. =) I'm teaching an introductory "culture of interaction on the net" course in the fall. I'm trying to build the course around a few seminal readings for each technology family, followed by several hours of student interaction with real people in the environments. I've broken out my topics areas like so - _Asynch Environments_ Listservs Newsgroups Web-boards Fan fiction groups Blogs _Synch Environments_ MUD/MOO IRC IM MMPORG Basically students would spend 3 hours reading about each topic and 6 hours out actually interacting in the environments, with the exception of blogs (which they will be using all semester to publish weekly reflection pieces) and the massively multiplayer games, which we will spend two weeks on. In their reflective pieces students will be applying what they've learned to the field of Instructional Technology, and looking for ways to improve online education -- not by using the technologies -- but by leveraging what they learn about the cultures of use of the technologies. SO, I'm writing to ask list members for pointers to seminal articles about each of the above technology families. Maybe some of you have taught similar classes, or have written these papers yourselves? As a carrot back to group members (if needed), the course materials I'm developing will be open sourced (Creative Commons) and available for use later this summer. For this reason, papers available online would be preferred if available. Looking forward to hearing what you have to say about the design of the course or readings I should use. Please reply directly if you don't feel this would be of interest to other list members, D