[We will present a slightly longer form of this paper at the
Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education 6th
International Conference (SITE 95) in San Antonio in March. Your
dialogue with us now will add depth to our presentation. Besides
inviting whatever comment you care to make, specific questions
in brackets within the paper. Thanks.] When we were young, we
learned to walk on the left side of the road, facing the
traffic, and to ride bicycles on the right side. Our mothers
taught us, "Speak respectfully to your elders," and "When you
introduce people, introduce the man or boy to the woman or
girl." There were, however, no computers in the childhood
environments of most of us, and certainly no computer
conferencing etiquette in our mothers' stores of knowledge.
Neither did we know about listservs, or two-way interactive
video conferencing classes, or computer conferences. There was
no way for us to grow up with a common set of expectations about
the social encounters we face in distance educat