Reading Notes 2/26/2007

"Technology as Teacher: Augmenting (Transforming) Writing Instruction"
-Janet Carey Eldred and Lisa Toner

• Computers have and will continue to transform writing instruction (I agree)
• Writing teachers integrating pedagogy and technology are pivotal agents in changes in technology. (I feel this is an interesting point considering the last article we read discussed how teachers in the English department at a university, I believe in Florida, were not even involved when the university set basic technological requirements that students were to know before graduating)
• The campus technology ladder: at the top=Technology-rich campuses, then we move on to technology bound campuses (with lofty goals), and at the bottom=ill-equipped campuses.
• Kudos to teachers and students e-mailing one another
• The real questions: "What can be done with computers in traditional, print-focused writing classrooms?" (36).
• One strength of going digital: access to many resources (scholarly journals, etc)
• Discussion about online classes/discussion--The online Shakespeare class that I took last semester was quite interesting. It was my first online course, and I thought I might miss the traditional classroom setting but I didn't. The instructor worked in ways to get many different classmates sharing their ideas, just as they would have been in the classroom. One thing that helped was an active instructor wanting to set up dialogues between students. I think online classes/discussions have the potential to be very beneficial for students.
• Heuristics defined-is a set process or method used to solve a problem or explore an idea
• I think this quote also goes with the last article. We should not let computers rule us. We should always be thinking about ways that we can use computers to enhance writing in the classroom. "For writing teachers integrating technology, it becomes crucial to determine how the software drives a particular way of thinking and whether or not the engine can be diverted from the programmed path and encouraged to take alternative mental routes" (39).
• Comment function on Word is great for Instructor reviewing
• Spell check can be helpful as well as annoying ( I will admit that I am one of those people that relies on spell check to catch my misspellings and because of this, I think my spelling has become poor in some circumstances)
• Thanks to the Internet, everyone can publish
• Thought the "Whole Classroom Management" discussion could have been expanded. I think technology can be such an advantage here
• Wow, that's definitely a point I haven't paid much attention to: ethical choices about technology. It's something teachers need to think about.
• Good list of what an instructor needs to think about before adopting a new technology. This part of the article I will definitely hold on to and think about beginning teaching.
• ***Students and teachers should drive "our decision making about literacy issues" (45).

-AAK

Reading Notes 2/19/2007

Reimagining the Functional Side of Computer Literacy -Stuart Selber Feb. '04

• "Faculty of English departments are rarely (if ever) consulted in institutional matter of computer literacy. Who is at fault here? Should English faculty take a more active approach?
• Past: advantages of word-processing programs for literacy
• Teachers of writing=focus on critical concerns NEED= more focus and broader on functional concerns of technology
• Students need both, plus rhetorical and visual literacies
• Just addressing critical concerns causes failure in 3 ways: attending to such functional concerns as 1. "managing online environments, 2. participating in online activities, 3. dealing with technical problems" (472).
• Just learning the "simple and fundamental" is not adequate!
• "Critics have argued that limited approaches to teaching functional skills overlook culture contexts, focus on vocational requirements, and reinforce social norms and values" (472).
• We need to do more than just maintain status quo...this is causing domestication and dehumanization of students (in other words, it's not fair, and we're cutting students' education short)
• Functional literacy has been focused on "highly specific, stabilized skill sets detached from particular social contexts" (473). This thought process...even damaging
• Functional technological literacy should (like Levine explains) "reflect the needs and motivations of the groups served, and should aim for a self-sustaining standard--one which permits pupils to make independent use of what the have learned without further help from an instructor" (473-4)!!!!
• Functional literacy should be about more than just survival
• Pg. 475= reasons that justify a functional approach. However, we shouldn't be satisfied with universalizing
• Parameters for functional literacy should be set around: educational goals, social conventions, specialized discourses, management activities, and technological impasses
• Educational Goals
• Be mindful of what is important to students
• Computer mediated users vs. functionally literate users (empowered users)
• Functionally literate users="confront skill demands, collaborate online, and explore instructional opportunities" (476)
• In other words, "further their educational goals
• All about computer control (being alert to technological limitations)
• Pg. 478 interesting discussion of use of computer as "glorified typewriter"
• Hmmm, interesting concept, style sheet. I'm not quite sure I know what this is.
• Online environments can suit individuals needs
• Similar to Yancey: "Design multiple arrangements that reflect different perspectives and educational goals" (479).
• Deliver individualized content in a creative and convenient manner
• Social Conventions
• Essential="decoding the expectations that have been adopted in socialized network spaces" (481)
• Pg. 482= the social forces of online discourses that shape the rate of participation
• Are you playing by the rules of computer etiquette?
• Thinking about social conventions in actual computer-mediated communications is a good exercise
• Focus=to be able to discern "productive modes of engagement" (483)
• Specialized Discourses
• While learning internal and external sketches of a typical computer system may be helpful, so should other discourses be emphasized
• There is really no such thing as a "coherent disciplinary discourse" (484-5)
• Pg. 485 Gives examples of what students/teachers need to know in computer-supported classrooms. A good rule of thumb for knowing the technology is being able to talk about it using the jargon or "language of...the technology" (485)
• Online environments are important as well
• Classes ahead of the game merged the computer industry, the print and publishing industry, and the broadcast and motion picture industry (486). In other words, they looked outside the box at the possibilities (which today is reality) of interdisciplinary relationships, specifically in regards to technology.
• Problem (at least for English teachers) technology gets the instrumental rather than pedagogical approach
• What may be needed is immersion and uninterrupted time in technological contexts
• Or, Selber offers some pedagogical strategies: use of advanced search engines and engage the specialized discourses of software programs or technologies. (Sounds like the place where the basis for our next project has come from :)
• Management Activities
• Sorry, I can't help but think about Britt during this section (and her management of her online world)
• Online management goes beyond housekeeping
• Possibly Selber should give students more credit when he argues that at least some students "assume that the Internet holds everything" (489).
• Interesting discussion about management of information, I have not played with the Windows Vista software, but I think it would be interesting to see the management of info on this system vs. older systems (is it moving more toward a time-oriented architecture?)
• Automated management activities that are already active and helpful: detailed filters, resources for personalized homepages, bookmarking, and shareware programs for maintenance (490)
• An important question: What managements activities can students solely turn over to the machine?
• "Management activities...unite technology and literacy in ways that require social judgements" (492)
• Filter assignment (this seems a bit basic, but might be fun); I understand how it plays a role in management activities
• Technological Impasses
• Lacking computer-based expertise "needed to solve a writing or communication problem" (493)
• Teachers should focus on performance-oriented impasses
• Computer anxiety
• Intervention and processes useful in classroom settings: First, assessment; Second, treatment; Third, adaptive computing; ***Fourth, instituting collaborative support systems; Alternative, micropolitical approaches (495)
• Assessment w/collaboration could be helpful (sounds like a helpline via e-mail)
• List of what teachers should do. Most importantly, don't run away from the issue when your student is asking about a technological impasses that you yourself do not know how to answer. "Take advantage of campus-wide resources!" (495)
• To overcome technological impasses both students and teachers need to make a shift in thinking (less dependence to machine) Semantic knowledge is the key
• Simple heuristic: "part 1-phrase an impasse as a qualitative question"; part 2-"locate the qualitative question in a classification matrix derived from empirical research on user-aided design" (I think this Selber is basically saying, ask the interpretive question); part 3-"appropriate forms of assistance" (497)
• Not only will this help a student get their problem solved or question answered, this way of thinking will allow the student to become more resourceful and "discover effective ways to work through performance-oriented impasses" (497)
• Social Problem
• Selber's basic point: "students must learn to work with computers in productive ways" (498).

-AAK

Reading Notes 2/2/2007

Made Not Only in Words: Composition in a New Key Dec. '04
-Kathleen Yancey

Intro

• "Words...will not stay still" (297)
• New technologies have contributed to the creation of new genres
• Yancey brings up a great point that no one is making "anyone do any of this writing" (298) ~That is in regards to production (blogs, videos, etc.) on the Web

Quartet 1

• Words and images work together
• The writing public has expanded
• They've learned "to write, think together, [and]to organize" (301), which is extremely important considering it was without "our" instruction. ("Our" is referred to as the composition instructors)
• Students and faculty have learned these genres on their own.
• Yancey notes, "we may already have become anachronistic" (302). It would be helpful to have this theme explained in class.
• Yancey is saying that numbers show the disappearance of English departments. (Not necessarily that they've gone away, just that they've merged into other departments)
• Today, more funding is going to students than what is going to public institutions. (It's becoming less about the country and more about the individual.)
• There is a linkage in between print literacy and screen literacy
• As quoted in Yancey, "No longer...can students be considered truly educated by mastering reading and writing alone" (305).
• (quote continued) "The ability to negotiate through life by combining words with pictures with audio and video to express thoughts will be the mark of the educated" (305). My thoughts are that Yancey must agree with this considering how she went about presenting this speech using words and pictures.
• Oral literacy + Print literacy = Third literacy
• Literacy should not be taught in composition classrooms but in media studies programs. (Let me digress for a minute here: It almost seems to me that this new curriculum that Yancey is trying to get at can be and in some ways is already being covered in current media courses. I feel this way because my undergrad was in communication/electronic media studies. Is it correct for composition/literacy classes to start taking on media and electronic writing courses? Obviously, Yancey is a biased source. It seems to me that communication departments might have more experience in dealing with what Yancey talks about in Quartet 3. I do agree that a new curriculum needs to be integrated; however, might it be more efficient for communication/media classes to take this on than general English/composition classes?)

Quartet 2

• Currently composition plays a key role as a first-year course...composition (as an actual course) becomes less and less important as a student continues in their education.
• Yancey calls that Gatekeeping vs. Gateway. (Yancey wants to focus on Gateway!)
• Yancey asks, "shall we teach print, digital, composition, communication, or all of the above?" (306). I think you know how I feel about this...read my comments above.
• "Many of us continue to focus on print" (307).
• Yancey says that composition already utilizes the "digital" (there just needs to be more structure...hence, three changes to composition curriculum)

Quartet 3

• Change 1: develop a new curriculum
• Change 2: revisit or revise our writing-across-the-curriculum efforts
• Change 3: develop a major in composition and rhetoric
• Discussion: stretch composition all along from first year through graduate studies. In composition there has always been and still is emphasis on the human relationship. Is the student and teacher relationship appropriate for what is going on in our world today with composition? This is specifically in regards to technology and the genre of electronic writing on the Web. While it would be beneficial, it's not manageable to evoke the one-to-one tutorial model. (constant teacher to student contact) If writing is social it should extend "beyond and around the single path from student to teacher" (311). Yancey's new curriculum says a lot about the appropriate way to transfer writing through various genres and put more focus on "real world." The 3 part new curriculum goes as follows: Part 1: Circulation of composition; Part 2: Canons of rhetoric; Part 3: Deicity of technology. Part 1: Circulation helps students learn the integrity of different fields and there genres. By dealing with new genres, there will also be reconstruction of texts. This new major would be called: Composition and Rhetoric. Part 2: Intertwining the domestic and disciplinary. Yancey uses laundered blankets in closet analogy. "What a shift in the means of delivery does is bring invention and arrangement into a new relationship" (317). Take a look at the difference b/t a book portfolio (singular) and a digital portfolio (plural). Part 3: "Words...whose 'meanings change quickly depending on the time or space in which they are uttered' or read" (318). Technological changes happen quicker than new literacies can emerge.
• Yancey says, while wrapping up the discussion of her new curriculum, "it will require a new expertise of us as it does of our students" (320). Hmm, a new expertise. You mean the one that communication professors are currently dealing with on a daily basis???

Quartet 4

• Should assessment begin to reflect technology?
• Yancey again restates her point about print and screen

What Should College English Be? (to discuss in class)

-AAK