Will Someone Tell Me How to Get In?

Knock, knock
Where is the door?
How do I get in?
Show me the bell?

How do I get....
from here to there?
Is there an incantation you can teach me?
Is there a hidden panel to push?
Do I just...

I have tried all the familiar things....
I have tried all the magical things....
I don’t have any intuitive notions
        in this world of unfamiliar
flashes
        beeps and
roving images.

WILL SOMEONE TELL ME HOW TO GET IN!!!!

        Each piece of software works in tandem with the computer hardware to create a matrix, a space to interact.  What may work as a process to enter into this relationship between the hardware and software, may not work in the case of another piece of software.  The first hurdle students confront when taking a computer conferencing course is “getting into” the system. In some preparatory work I did with computer conferencing, one of the students said:

To get into the conferencing system at first was terrible!  When I got the disk it was wrong.  First of all, it took me two weeks just to get on line.  A lot of people were having problems.  The screen wouldn't come up and it kept saying there was an error here and an error there and I wouldn’t see...I would just see a black screen instead of online classroom screen. (Ann)


        Getting into the conferencing classroom means the student has to pass through and into another place.  Like most gateways or doorways between two places there are often signposts, passwords and rituals that permit entry.  In the conferencing space, a piece of software or digital code serves as an interface or translator between the student’s computer and the online classroom located on a computer at the university.  If the translation or code is not recognized by both computers, access is denied.  For Heidegger, “communication takes place in the course of shared activity...we see it in common” (Dreyfus, 1991, p. 211).  If communication at a basic machine level does not provide a shared activity, the student can not get into the online classroom.  Without the shared communication matrix, there is not even a door to pass through.
 

At the very beginning you have to get your password and all that and when you actually log on you have to do...like I am used to seeing a start button and then documents like my word processor.  But I found myself at the "c" prompt and I had to type in the software name and a backslash and the University name.  Everything had to be perfect because if it wasn’t… “logon incorrect, logon incorrect, logon incorrect.” (Ann)
        “Getting into” implies both location or spaces (an outside and an inside) and a movement between spaces.  If I get into my car, I move from outside my car through the door and into my car.  The access point is framed by my door.  The door marks a boundary or threshold between two spaces?inside and outside.  The “into” implies not only an enclosed space, but it is related to a physical perspective.  I am outside of the enclosed space and my intention is to move or “get” inside.  How are location and spaces implied in “getting into” the online classroom? Do we have psychological spaces that frame an “outside-getting-inside?" Where am I moving from if I am seated at the computer?  How is space conceived in this context?  How is an “in-between” space or boundary created?

        I gain access to the space “in” my car through the door.  I have a key that opens the door lock and admits me “into” the space.  The door operates as a boundary and a threshold.  If the door remains locked, I can’t pass “into” the car.  While the car forms a personal space to get into, the door provides a way to go from outside-into and the lock serves to protect the space.  I have the key, the way to open the space to entry.  Besides entry what other functions do doorways provide?   How are locks and keys extended into our experience?  Can they also be represented in psychological spaces?

        Once inside my car, it forms an inside personal space.  My daughter noticed that once people are inside their cars they believe they can’t be seen even though there are windows surrounding them.
Haven’t you ever noticed that people will pick their nose in their car as if no one can see them?  I want to yell, “Stop it, I can see you!” It is as if in this inside world they have a different perception. (Kimberly)
 
        When the student “gets into” the computer, is it a personal inside place?  Are there behavior rules that are “inside” and private or outside and public?  What spatial cues determine my sense of inside and privates space?

        The next level of entry is a computer key or password.  Just as a key for a car is specific and original to each car, so is the computer password.  It must be entered exactly.  I am recognized by the university computer in terms of my digital signal encoded by my keyboard.  The password allows entry into the university computer and the online classroom space.  The password does not allow students into other spaces on the computer.  Each person is only allowed to “get into” authorized places.  I may suspect there are other spaces on the university computer, but for me the only “place” is the online classroom.  How are these spaces created?  Who decides what they should look like?  Would I recognize other spaces on the university computer?  Who decides where the users of the computer should be?