This paper examines how discourse analysis can be used as a methodology for understanding the mental models that influence how people navigate the Internet. Discourse analysis provides a methodology with which to articulate the relationships between language, social context, and the cognitive processes that underlie discourse perception and production. Results are described of a pilot study that asked participants about how they navigate the Internet, as well as how they conceptualize space and time while using the World Wide Web. Four education graduate students were interviewed for the study, and their answers were audiotaped and transcribed. By providing a clearer sense of how people construct their experience while on the Internet, the study begins to present techniques for analyzing end-users that help to clarify more culturally relevant technology-based pedagogies. The goal is to discern strategies for studying people to help design educational media, such as educational Web sites, that take into consideration not only how educational media is structured, but also consider the guiding mental models that influence learning on the Internet. (MES)