We tend to think about education as either distance or face-to-
face, but with the increased use of network technology in the
classroom the reality of the traditional classroom is often a
lot more of a spectrum. Some lectures are recorded so that
students who need to miss a class can watch them at more
convenient times; instructors sometimes make blogging a class
requirement, and mailing list discussions among current student
bodies, staff, faculty and alumni often infiltrate the walls of
the brick and mortar building. The merging of the “on” and
“offline” educational environment is nowhere more clear than in
the School of Information, where I conducted exploratory
ethnographic research of the I School community and the impact
of networked technology on the face-to-face interactions there.
Interviewing students, staff and faculty and observing social
interactions in the student lounge, the classroom, the co-lab
and corridors, I concluded that the “spaces between” class play
an important role in the learning ex