Origins of ACE
"The National Council of Teachers of English. . .had already established, in 1980, its Committee on Instructional Technology. This committee was chaired in 1983 by Robert Caldwell, an early supporter of computer use in English classrooms. The Council also sponsored a Commission on Media, which was first formed in 1980. However, the limited membership of these groups would not accommodate the numbers of Council members who wanted to affiliate with a professional community focused on technology. As a result, at the 1984 annual NCTE convention, a group calling itself the NCTE Assembly for Computers in English (ACE) held its first organizational meeting. In 1985, the group was granted full status as a Council Assembly and, at the annual convention, sponsored a panel on software copyright issues.Growth of ACE
"In line with its effort to involve a number of Council members in conversations about computers, ACE published a widely distributed newsletter and sponsored a popular software exhibit at the national conventions of NCTE. ACE proved so popular during the first year of its existence that Leni Cook, the membership Chair, was able to write the following passage in the second issue of the ACE Newsletter (1985):With members in such far-away places as Australia, Hong Kong, the Virgin Islands, Alaska and Hawaii, the Assembly for Computers in English numbers over 700 elementary, secondary, and college instructors. Also joining are school districts, secondary English departments, government agencies, and publishers....Forty-eight states are represented, only Delaware and Nevada have no members. (p. 1)The NCTE Software Sampler
"At the NCTE annual conference, the ACE software exhibit featured demonstrations by the growing numbers of English teacher/software developers who talked to interested conference participants about their own software packages and about other commercial software packages available for the teaching of English composition. "