I’m still here.
How do I get out?
I could shut off the computer,
but….
Will I loose everything?
Will I break something?
Will I never be able to get back?
Is there anyone out there to help me?
Anybody?????
I didn’t know how to get out. I’m stuck. I keep hitting escape and I wasn’t getting anywhere. I was doing escape, escape, escape. How do I get out? I couldn’t get out. I am just stuck. I just went the heck with it, I just turned the darn thing off. (Mary, 1997)Getting-out can be just as challenging for students as getting-in. It's like being in a maze. The twists and turns don’t make sense. The need to escape, to return to becomes pressing. What if I never find my way to the familiar place I understand? Escape comes form the Latin word, ex capa, out of cape or cloak (Webster's, 1979, p. 622). A cloak is an outer garment that protects one from the elements. It also conceals what lies beneath. To get out of one’s cape implies leaving a layer of protection, an outside covering behind. Why would I want to be “out of cape?” Perhaps, it is too warm or too cumbersome. In this case, I would no longer need it. Perhaps, I have outgrown it or it is worn out. In this case, I would be “out of cape” because I need another, a different type of covering. A cloak, while it protects, may also inhibit movement. It offers a facade and outer layer. If I want to be out of cape in a computer environment, I want to leave this outer shell—to take it off. How is a computer conference confining? Can it be outgrown? Does it wear out? Why would I want to take it off?
The student is stuck. Stuck is the past participle of stick and comes from the Middle English word, steken, to pierce or puncture (Webster's, 1979, p. 1787). It does not have the sense of being detained without a way to leave, but more a wounding. If I am stuck, I am pierced. What does this sense of wounding mean in a computer context? Has my way of imagining the world been pierced and wounded? If I have been wounded, would I want to take off my cloak? Does my need to escape signal a fear of wounding and change?
Within the matrix, the lived experiences are couched in expressions of space. Spatial language is used to describe being on the computer, on the Internet, going back and forth skipping between one "address" to another on the Web. Where AM I in a web-based computer conference? What is the lived experience of students, with whom I had conversations, like in a web-based computer conference? How can I shape my exploration of the phenomenon to find the essence of the students' lived experience?
Hermeneutic phenomenology provides a perspective and a method to explore the essence of experience. In the next chapter, I will begin with a philosophical discussion of being and how it relates to space and place. Once the study is philosophically situated, I discuss how phenomenology can be applied to educational research. I complete the chapter with a brief explanation of how I am going to re-present the experience in a hypermedia web-based dissertation space.