Acknowledgments

I have had the pleasure of working with a dedicated, thoughtful group of contributors despite difficult times. They have never wavered in their belief in this project: thank you. From our brief conversation at the Watson Conference in 2008 to the present, John Trimbur sparked this endeavor and has been unfailingly kind and supportive all along the way.

I also thank Ph.D student Benjamin Smith, my Graduate Research Assistant, for collaborating with me on the design of this project. Ben worked many hours drafting and revising, always with great cheer and enjoyment, even giving up some of his CCCC conference time to join me in meeting with contributors.

Thanks to Oklahoma State University and, in particular, the English Department for monetary and resource support. I thank the previous English Department Head, Carol Moder, who supported my request for funds to purchase needed software and attend scholarly conferences such as the Watson, and the current Department Head, Ritch Frohock, for his good counsel, mentoring and continuous support for my work.

I thank the graduate students in my seminar on Literacy in the Digital Age for excellent conversations on the topic of literacy. They are a smart group of students and a joy to work with.

The College of Arts and Sciences Information Technology Department at Oklahoma State provided essential technical assistance and troubleshooting. Thanks to Gary Jones for asking all the right questions. I particularly thank the Oklahoma State Arts and Sciences Web Developer Mark Morgan who gave me whole afternoons of one-on-one tutoring in HTML 5, sorely needed and much appreciated.

Thank you to Gail Hawisher and Cindy L. Selfe for their support, thoughtful critiques, and quick responses to questions along the way. Much appreciation and thanks to the extremely helpful comments of the blind reviewers of the project. I also thank Patrick Berry for his generous assistance during the early stages of the project as well as Gary Bays and Tim Lockridge for their editorial eyes during the latter stages.

Finally, I want to acknowledge, with love, my brilliant and creative children, Micah and Megan Smith, whose stories of student life have shaped so much of my thinking about twenty-first century literacy practices. And last, but never least, thank you Mitchell P. Smith, for your passionate integrity.