ABSTRACT
In 2004, while teaching a technical writing class, I was looking through student
peer reviews when I found the word “noob” scribbled on a student’s paper by
his peer reviewer. Already familiar with the term’s meaning in gaming discourse,
I was prompted to write a cautionary note to the offending student. I have
discovered since then that discourse common to virtual communities has gradu-
ally affected online discussions in my hybrid technical writing courses. Over
the years, my students have engaged in more passionate arguments in virtual
chats than I have yet to witness in an on-site classroom, and student-created
discussion threads possess increasingly clever and intriguing titles, while tradi-
tional essays written by on-site students are still clumsily titled “Essay 1.” I
wondered to what extent students’ growing participation in virtual communities
was affecting online class activities; and more specifically, the term “noob”
called into question the relationship between collaborative learning practices
and the popularity of online gaming.
