I gave a talk on computers and writing to a group of soon-to-be teachers in the Education department (MUTE). If you’re interested, here is a link to the presentation.
Based on the audience response, they loved the talk. Either that, or they were all lying through their teeth, which I doubt!

10/27/2005 Update: Keri asked what sorts of questions they asked.
One person asked,”should we account for the fact that not everyone has a computer with Internet access at home?” Definitely. I think teachers should take into account what sort of computer resources there are on campus and how often they take younger students to the computer lab. Here at MU, there are lots of computer labs that are open late and if students have computers, they also have Internet access in their dorm rooms, so it is less of an issue here than with students under college age.

Another person asked, “you mean all this content (that I referred them to on the Internet) is free?” Amazing, isn’t it. If I had more time, I could have gone into a long explanation relating to affective labor and giving to the community…but, we were running late on time.

Many of them expressed joy at seeing Microsoft Word’s commenting feature, as well as the ability to change the comment color to something other than red.

They were thrilled at finding so much oral content on the Internet.

They also liked looking at the pictures of a local photoblogger. I explained that I’ve structured some assignments around responding to those pictures.
Someone said they could play with the Imagination Prompt all day.

Lessons Learned:
Even if you’re a guest speaker and you’ve used the facilities in the building before, it would be wise to make sure you can load and use your presentation prior to the actual talk. I lost a little bit of time trying to use the big-screen touch computer (I’m sure there is a more technical name for these).

Links are Gold. They made my presentation come alive. It is so much more fun to be able to see the content that is available than just hear someone tell you it’s there.