writing at Virginia Tech; McKinley Green, an assistant professor of English at George Mason University. Presenters: Pedagogy Computers and writing pedagogy teach students practical applications and implications of writing by exploring complex concepts such as visual rhetoric, issues of access, and the social implications of online writing. Scholars analyze how the computer becomes an environment for facilitated writing and communication. The production and consumption of digital, multimodal, and new media texts advances the field's range of study and research. The majority of computers and writing scholars agree that engaging students in the production of such multimodal/digital texts is crucial to the learning process in our digitally infused moment. During the 1960s and 1970s, which was also known as the "Birth of Composition," computer-assisted instruction was used to observe students and provided instant positive, negative, or constructive feedback. How computers and digital technologies would impact writers' efficiency and quality of work was being determined. Initial debate came from how best to balance creativity and technical construction in writing. Many teachers thought that the technology programs offered needed improvement because they did not allow for the creative expression of the students, acting only as an evaluator, reader, and feedback agent. Now the programs require multimodality, creativity, and technical complexity. The problems the students face in these programs now require much more comprehensive thinking and creativity to the point that it is difficult to still call the subject "writing" because the students are required to know much more. Computers and writing pedagogies must be dynamic and adaptable to how technology, media, and the sociopolitical spaces operate in a constant state of flux. Emerging forms of pedagogies address "Digital Activism" and the use of social media on political communication and advocacy. Computers and digital media offer innovative ways to engage rhetorically with one another. Studying how students develop their digital literacy through their connecting their previous interactions with technologies to new forms by means of metaphors and mental models. Teaching theoretical composing concepts through scaffolding can build students' digital literacy both with current and future technologies and programs. These skills advance critical media awareness when working with digital media. Writing in the Age of Communication Technology In the age of communication technology, amateurs and experts collaborate to create, sustain and develop virtual communities based on what James Paul Gee and Elisabeth Hayes have called "passionate affinity spaces", or communities organized around "a shared endeavor,