ABSTRACT
The following chapters have the Internet, as it were, as their communal beating heart: the online milieu is the chain that links them all together. Nor are these metaphors intended to be glib, throwaway comments. As I come right out and say in several of these submissions, and hint at in others, the Internet is a frightening presence in many people’s lives—both educators’ lives and the lives of our students. And those not in anxious awe of the Internet—its boggling, amoeba-like ability to self-reproduce; the way in which it has forced its way into our lives, particularly over the last fifteen years; its unstoppable drive—really should be! It is something unnatural and profound—and the least we owe it is our respect!
