It's important to note that you do not necessarily have to own any or all of these technologies, and a couple of them are free to download. You just need access to them. Most of them are available on the Harper campus in one of the computer labs, such as The Writing Center. Similarly, if you don't have access to these applications at home, you might have access to some of them at work, or even at a friend's or relative's home, or even at your local library.

As you can tell, "access" is the buzz word here. One of the important aspects of learning online is gaining access to the technology so that you can complete your work. Moreover, in a very real sense the flexibility of online learning is proportional to the amount of access to technology.

The technology requirements for this course are as follows:

• A PC or Macintosh system
• An internet service provider (ISP) for home access and/or access from work (recommended)
• A web browser (Netscape or Internet Explorer recommended)
• E-mail (web-based or stand-alone application)
• A word processing application (should be able to save files in Rich Text Format [*.rtf])
• Adobe Acrobat Reader (available free at Adobe's web site)