Hidden away on the third floor of the Liberal Arts building at the University of Detroit Mercy is an unassuming room called classroom 311.  This classroom is considered a "wired" place on campus.  The distinction, however, is dubious at best.  

"Seeing is Believing ..." (or Not)

When students first enter room 311, they may be struck by the visual display of monitors sitting prominently on very utilitarian looking tables.  The sight of these monitors and the impressive computer boxes they sit on give an immediate impression of technological power.  Colorful wires protrude seductively from the back of each machine.  Each computer almost shines with possibility.  The very image of these brings a smile of hope to each student's face. 

What these students are seeing, however, are the backs of these machines.  Each student fills in the invisible blank in this vision with the ideal computer filled with knowledge and streaming displays of technological wizardry.  As they hurry to their seats, they meet the ugly "truth" of this promise as they encounter the "face" of each machine. 
 

"Well, it sounds like it's working..."

The hopeful students who now sit blankly before their darkened screens instinctively grab the mouses and shake them..  The machines hum on as if they hadn't noticed this jostling, as if they are busy doing other things. 

To be fair, not all the machines respond this way.  Some are whirling loudly with activity -- the tapping keyboards dotted around the room attest to this.  Yet, it's those students who sit behind the contrary screens who receive our attention.  They are the ones who question the "wired" status this room promised.  The unresponsive machines hum on, busy with their own work, being wired for the sake of wiring. 
 

"Oooh, that smell ... can you smell that smell?"

Those humming wires are doing something.  They may not be accessing the magic of the Internet, they may not be offering a window to knowledge or even performing a simple path to Word (or words!).  Everyone in the room knows they're doing something important and scientific since the spinning fans and gears are emitting a profound chemical smell from the back of each one.  The air becomes a cloud of working odor.  In this peculiar smell is the history of computing -- it is all the blood, sweat, and salty tears of those who labored way too long to bring each machine to the state it's in now: a rumbling, spewing, chemical accumulation of smoky wires and mirrors.
 

"Feelings ... oooh, feelings"

The room is fairly isolated, as classrooms go.  It's away from other classrooms and shares this space with its brother computer room next door.  This relatively small room houses approximately 25 computers.  Each machine is churning out heat (if nothing else).  In order to keep these machines functioning (so the story goes), they must be kept cool. 

Someone must have told this to the person manning the air conditioning switch.  This person has probably never visited room 311, and who can blame him (or her).  The room, therefore, is usually kept cold enough to store meat.  As the students sit open-mouthed and shivering behind their individual terminals, it's easy to imagine that they are being "stored" by these machines for later use.