In 1994, for reasons beyond my comprehension, I was offered a full-time position in the Department of Sociology at UMSL.

What this really meant is that I got my own office and a computer connected to the LAN.

My friend of many years, Larry Irons, helped me learn the techniques of using the interesting resource call the Internet, and told me about this "new program called Mosaic that is really slick."  We tried to install it, but we were unsuccessful.

I called upon the help of a reference librarian named Melissa Silvestre (aka Melissa Belvadi) who was not only helpful in getting my office computer set up with a web browser, she also help me install a web server and got my office computer online--In the words of Steve Martin in, "The Nerd," I finally "was somebody."

Following my lead, UMSL became a part of the WWW within the next 4 months.

Throughout this time, Peter Etzkorn--chair of the sociology department and my friend, provided me with support, encouragement, and a variety of questions that always kept me going back "out there" to find an answer.

I came to enjoy observing the rapid expansion of the WWW and began to think that this new mode of communicating and interacting could probably be used in interesting ways within the classroom.    

Virtuality.