Technology & Writing: A Manifesto

Technology & Writing: A Manifesto

Because “technology” is a loaded term, with vast implications, it seems best to clarify the depth, breadth, and seriousness of the issues involved with a “technology plank” in the WPA statement on outcomes in college composition. After doing so, I will then list the student "outcomes" that seem necessary in light of a critical understanding of the uses of computer technology in college writing instruction.

A reasonable amount of activism and political involvement at the curricular and administrative levels is appropriate for the further advancement of good practices. When possible, for instance, faculty and writing program administrators charged with online teaching responsibilities should consider some of the following:

--Educators must learn how to deal with political and state-mandated technology initiatives as components of their writing programs.

--Writing programs may need to deal with private enterprise and with independent academic researchers when implementing technology systems and innovative projects.

--While writing programs might be expected to have the ability to study technology-rich approaches to course design, collecting accurate outcomes data, and predicting online success both qualitatively and quantitatively, writing program administrators should be ready to explain that the state of the technologies and the user population is dominated by uncertainty. Computer and internet technologies are still too new to produce static conditions and predictable outcomes.

--Educators should encourage their institutions to construct stable and sensible missions/plans for growth and development of online and technology-enhanced writing courses.

--Effective conventional, traditional, and intuitive approaches to teaching writing should be encouraged, but writing programs should also make room for educators willing to improvise and push the newest edges of technological development, expanding and re-defining goals and processes as they go.

--Responsible writing programs should hesitate to commit their design and development time to any one particular proprietary (for-profit) system that could be defunct within a year (or less).

--Online course development must be based upon sound pedagogical and theoretical foundations; it is irresponsible to press for large-scale enrollment in computer-mediated classes.

--Until statistical and qualitative data is gathered on student success, tuition cost-benefits, and student-centered technological design, WPA’s should be aware of (and take measures to counteract) the stressors and challenges to teachers—many of whom are newly hired faculty, adjuncts, and graduate teaching assistants.

--Propaganda celebrating faculty members’ abilities to “adjust” and “innovate” should be used judiciously, since the pressure to constantly adapt to new technologies could be adding undue (and irresponsible) stress to the workload of many teachers.

--WPA’s should weigh the cost in time and activities that might weigh more heavily with hiring/tenure committees against the gains made by faculty members and GTA’s who are deeply involved in technology-based pedagogies.

--Encourage a vision of technology that represents the Internet as a malleable, borderless entity, rather than a “delivery conduit.”

--Without becoming overly zealous, writing instructors need to have a healthy respect for security and privacy issues.

--Faculty should request and receive sufficient “front-loading” time and resources to investigate new and innovative software and web technologies.

--Institutions should critically analyze proprietary “course delivery systems” licensed to their institutions, and offer alternatives when possible.

--Students should be surveyed regularly, concerning issues of usability and connectivity.

--Faculty should also be surveyed regularly, concerning issues of usability and connectivity.

--Educators should make informed and well-reasoned decisions about their own “presence” in online courses—including images, video, and textual “personality” in electronic classes.

--Writing courses offered online or in technology-rich computer labs should be consistent with the practices of the college or university, not just “added on” for profit or marketing purposes (see: National Education Association, Office of Higher Education (2002). The promise and the reality of distance education. Research Center Update. 8 (3) http://www.nea.org/he/heupdate/vol8no3.pdf).

--Faculty should enlist the aid of systems administrators, instructional technologists, software experts, and of course each other, to learn as much as possible about the available technological options.

--Educators should be willing to act as advisors and consultants to upper-level administrators and governing boards when they make major institution-wide technology decisions.

--Institutions, governing boards, and legislators should be willing to put money and resources into development efforts made by faculty and writing programs, to develop effective and updated courses that employ current technologies in relevant ways.

--Proprietary, for-profit technology vendors should be separate from – and even in competition with – established, traditional institutions of higher education, rather than hired-on and wedged into curricula that may or may not be well-suited for their use.

--Online and hybrid writing courses should not be seen as exploitable “cash cows” for departments or colleges looking to load large numbers of students into writing intensive freshman courses.

--Innovative and talented educators can and should be allowed to rescue good designs and ideas before they are snatched away by concerns unrelated to writing and critical thinking.

--Poor pedagogical designs implemented in the name of budgetary, political, or technological expedience should be rejected and prevented before they do harm to students and writing programs, not after.

Compared with other technological and architectural infrastructures in place on most college campuses (i.e., water, gas, electricity, landscaping, telephones, buildings, bridges, roads), computer technologies are new, shaky, and untried on any grand scale (consider a bridge that only collapses once a month, or a traffic light that only malfunctions every 100th hour). Yet eduators who are new to teaching with computer technologies typically blame themselves for malfunctions that result from bad design; they may waste numerous hours exploring fruitless catacombs of techno-horrors expecting rewards for their students at the end of the endless tunnels. We can pool our resources and skills, and listen to each other, learn from each other, demand better design, better technological products and management, and better understanding of the issues and challenges faced by faculty and administrators who must work to discover best-practices in the a world of ever-changing, yet powerful and exciting new technologies.

In light of these recommendations for administering and teaching college writing with new technologies, I would suggest the following outcomes for students learning to write in the Computer Age.

Students learning to use computing and internet technologies in college writing courses should become familiar with the following concepts and skills:


-Understand general concepts of what the internet is, and how it works.

-Understand basic file management: saving and retrieving files to local, removable, and remote directory systems (i.e., hard drive, ‘flash’ drive, portable disks, and remote servers)

-Understand general uses and basic skills for word processing and producing printed documents in standard, assigned formats.

-Understand general uses and basic skills for electronic messaging systems, including synchronous and asynchronous technologies such as electronic mail, instant messaging, and online discussion boards.

-Understand general uses and basic skills for producing various digitally formatted information, including digitized graphics, sound, video, and text formats.

-Understand some of the theoretical, ideological, institutional, and social implications of various computer and internet technologies that transmit written language and other human symbolic systems of communication.

-Understand critical approaches to technology both within and beyond the sphere of the academy (“critical” here is used in the sense of requiring students to learn, discuss, and debate the implications of social, political, and cultural power structures that are enhanced and created through the adoption and use of advanced technologies).

-Understand the scope of complexity that technology brings to the already vast and rich landscape of the study of language, rhetoric, and writing.

CeeJ

Reference:

Jeney, Cynthia. "Online Distance Education and the 'Buffy Paradigm': Welcome to the Hell Mouth." in Role Play: Distance Learning and the Teaching of Writing (New Dimensions in Computers and Composition) Jonathan Alexander and Marcia Dickson (Editors). Cresskill, NJ: 2006.

Welcome to the Blog for WWAPG!

Greetings web visitors!

Writing for the Web: A Practical Guide is designed to be used in college courses that focus on written content for web sites and online resources. I'm very excited about this project, because this book concentrates on the actual contexts and situations that writers encounter when they work on web site content. The chapters discuss the vital importance of planning web content, then exercises and assignments allow students to practice writing different kinds of content for online publication. There's room for creativity as well as for technical precision on the web. The book would work very well as a companion-text in courses that also incorporate programming and design elements into the curriculum. I'd love to hear from as many teachers and students as possible as they work with the information and assignments in this book. Contact me!

Best wishes,

CeeJ