ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the technical communication classroom as a platform for focusing students' writing and research skills through the lens of digital citizenship. In computer programming, open-source refers to software that is designed, written, tested, debugged, and revised collaboratively by members of an online community rather than by a corporation or other institution. The chapter examines "open-source" as it relates to the internet and to the practice of technical communication as an act of digital community-building. It considers the role of play in learning and the role of participatory communication in play. The open-source model of decentralized knowledge creation and distribution is a form of activism. It starts with an individual, grows from a basic respect for knowledge, and blossoms as a desire to work with other people to gather, develop, test, refine, and share information on a particular topic.
