Techno-Pedagogical Explorations by Dickie Selfe

I wish we'd begun sooner in the class with reading this essay and the book in which it is included, "Teaching Writing With Computers." Selfe gets at what I've been wondering all along: If I'm supposed to incorporate technology into my writing classroom, fine, BUT TELL ME WHY.

Selfe might not fully explain the why, but he does consider the "how." He reminds writing instructors that all technology is changing and that what we read about technology and writing, even that published maybe five years ago, might be outdated. And he also explains the frustration of being asked to teachin a hybrid classroom without being fully explained to why it might be beneficial. (Since writing instructors are thought to think critically, it shouldn't be assumed that we'll accept changes blindly.)

Selfe offers from practical suggestions on how to use the technology, such as having one student post a work, a second student assess that work, and then a third student assess the interaction between the first and second student. I think that would be helpful for both writing and critical thinking development -- I wish I'd be given more suggestions such as these in order to be encouraged to use technology in the classroom. I've never been adverse to technology, but I've been on the fence as to its benefits in the classroom. Perhaps this essay and the rest of the reading in the book will help me to decide.

Responding to and Assessing Student Writing by Anson

This was a crucial article, I believe, for those universities that are moving to online teaching and writing. How *do* you assess writing done online? The hyperlinks would be especially problematic for me, especially since we're so used to teaching citation and MLA (which I don't always agree with, because of its limitations outside of academia). I think teaching to write online is more beneficial for students, especially those who are contemplating a communications career, simply because it would be more beneficial for them to learn the implications of hyperlinks and adding Web pages to their thoughts than it does to learn paranthetical citation -- again, only useful if you are planning an academic career.

I think this article speaks much of academia's need to remember that most of our students will work outside of the university when they graduate, and so our classes should reflect their realistic experiences in communication as such. It was interesting to note that the professors doing the assessment of different types of writing naturally gravitated toward the written work, assessing it first over the online writing, simply because of their comfort level. It shows that composition has a long way to go in order to respond to what types of writing students will do after their university work is done.

Creative Commons ... by everyone, I guess :-)

The presentation by Creative Commons was thought-provoking for me. A bass artist apparently got verbal permission from Jack of the White Stripes to add his riffs to their music and post it. It's a cool concept but I think the bass player was loony -- that music *is* copyrighted, check out the CD cover -- and if the Authorities That Be from the record company go after the guy, I don't think Jack White's word will be enough to cover the bass player. (If you know anything about Jack White, you know he's not always all there.)

Deciding to "skip the intermediaries" is an interesting concept, but I guess I'm old school, because unless it's a draft that you're willing to throw out to the world, it's a little dangerous. Some writers and authors have used it as a marketing tool to their benefit. Stephen King, for example, posted the beginning of a book chapter in his work "On Writing" and invited his readers to post their endings in an e-mail to him. Tori Amos allows her works to be posted freely and changed into mixes by her fans, which probably just makes her more popular with them. Also, Jennifer Weiner posts the first chapters of her books as a kind of teaser to her readers; we're ready to read the rest of the book when it comes out.

But I think these are varying forms of sharing work -- while King is happy to allow his readers to change and add to his work, Weiner just wants you to read her stuff in the hopes that you'll buy her book, not change her writing. The new concept of "cc"ing a work instead of copyrighting it has a lot of grey areas -- how much does the writer/artist want you to change his or her work? What is permissible? Perhaps a lot of it is in the presentation. A wiki invites changes, for example; a downloadable paper file does not as much, although perhaps it invites more distribution.

Electronicc Collaboration in the Humanities by James Inman

To be honest, I'm surprised James wrote this one. His voice isn't reflected at all.

Anyhoo, I'm sorry I missed class on Thursday because James mentioned to me that he'd spoke to the class about the article, and this one was difficult for me to wade through. However, the section that stuck with me was the social impact of using electronic methods to record our writing.

The Internet is so big right now, but after all, it's not all that old -- what, about 25 years? And what if all of the work we're doing turns into some big Encyclopedia Brittanica from 1948, outdated and dusty and no one referring to it in another 100 years? It's hard to consider because the Internet is so encompassing right now ... but then, I watched a rerun of "Beverly Hills 90210" this week, when the kids were making a time capsule, and one of them threw in a floppy disk, saying, "When this gets dug up in 50 years, probably no one will know what it is." Honey, I don't own one now, a whole ten or fifteen years later.

What is an Electronic Author? by Richard Grusin

This article focuses on how electronic writing has changed our authorship and culture of writing. We've spoken in class about ownership of our writing, which is something we concentrate on when we teach the freshman composition classes. However, the mere fact that we can now link our writings to other web pages makes me reconsider this: If I choose to link to another person's Web page because it contains relevant (or even just amusing) content to what I'm writing, does that somehow change ownership of my own words?

I'm also thinking about Yahoo!, which is constantly running a "Laura Bush is all about education" ad (this would need its own post) right now. What if I link to Yahoo! for relevant text, a reader clicks on it, and the stinking Bush ad pops up? Does this now somehow infer that I believe in that content as well? Frightening.

On Writing Well: Springing the Genie by G. Douglas Atkins

I fear that my New Orleans vacation has put me behind in my posting, so I'm going to try to catch up on several tonight.

Atkins points out the blissfulness of writing with a pen and being computer illiterate. He depends on a secretary, however, to word process all of his stuff for him, so it's not really as though he can do without a computer. He just makes somebody else work the tool.

I think the most important part of this article focuses on whether or not writing with a computer, versus a pen, makes us write differently. The first part of the article focuses on the creative process; since I study both creative writing and rhet/comp, this is one of the important pieces of writing that I'm studying closely. I'm beginning to think that the fine line between the two camps is learning to write aptly, and then learning to write well. However, there are a lot of intersections between these two camps, which I hope to look into more in the coming years.

Orality and Literacy: Walter J. Ong

This article concentrates on the connections between orality and writing, or, the similarities, as well as differences, between what we say and how we present it on the page. Language is overwhelmingly oral (7), and until recently, not much of our communication was put on the page. (This rings more true for some cultures than others.)

Most everyone is comfortable with his or her orality, at least in a society where people share the same orality. It is when we transfer those things spoken -- probably unconcsiously -- to the page that we might stumble. For instance, grammarians will be quick to point out the problems in spelling and grammar without looking at the context of the work.

From Pencils to Pixels: Baron

I liked this article. It made a lot of valid points about why people fear to change anything about their communication, but how each new "technology" has assisted writing in different ways. I say assist, however, and not better, because in some ways, I feel our technology has not helped our writing at all.

Take, for instance, how technology has allowed newsapers to focus more on its graphic presentation than the actual writing. In the 80s, USA Today even declared that it wouldn't publish many long articles, instead focusing on infographics, because we'd become such a visual society that we just didn't read much anymore. I'm definitely one for the visual, but then what happened to the in-depth news coverage?

I think the Internet has hurt our writing in some ways, especially our ability to construct long paragraphs and trains of thought in exchange for immediacy. I hardly ever write letters to my friends anymore; my stationery is getting yellow. It's made writing better in other ways -- if I want to catch a friend, I can send an e-mail and know he or she will catch it before the day is up because my friends check their accounts daily. I depend on it heavily because I'm not home much, or at weird hours, and no one can catch me because I always forget to turn my cell phone on or I'm on the road. With e-mail, I can get ahold of people within 24 hours. As a freelancer, that's a tremendous help.

As for recording information, I think the Internet works almost too well. It's definitely better than paper -- paper gets limited distribution, it gets old and crumbles, people misplace it. The internet is everywhere, all the time, keeping studious records. But sometimes it records stuff I write that was just a passing fancy and now it's out there for years, even when I don't feel that way anymore. Of course, I guess that happens to authors too.

What's a Wiki?

I thought this was a good article for beginners like me. It explained the basics of the wiki and some of the differences between different wiki sites. I still don't have a clear explanation as to why the author believes online collaboration is better than face-to-face collaboration, but I guess this will be something I explore throughout this semester.

One thing in the article that grabbed my attention was on the top of page 17. It was stated, "Wiki is inheritently democratic -- every user has exactly the same capabilities." That might be true to some degree because design and word processing is extremely simple. But the statement should be reconsidered, because not everyone is comfortable working on computers. Also, the wiki we're using for our class doesn't seem to be compatible with my iBook, so it's not democratic for people who use certain types of computers.

Towards Electricity by Ulmerr/Memmott

The most interesting part of this reading, to me, was the concept that the
"Web is a book." I have trouble with this because, as we
mentioned in class, there is no accountability for accuracy on the Web. While
books certainly have mistakes in them, there's a bit more carefulness in the
printed word because there's no changing it. Once it's on paper and bound in a
cover, well, that's it until the next revision. So the author tends to be a bit
more careful.

I have students who are frightened to write simply because they find paper so
intimidating -- I usually crumple up a piece of paper in front of them and say,
"It's only paper. You can make mistakes on it." Yet when it
comes to publishing, that's an entirely different thing, isn't it?

I do like the Web b/c of the accessibility -- I can get the works of anyone
without making a trip to the library. Yet, for this class, the printouts are
smudged and I can't read some of them, I can't seem to log onto my research
blog, and I have carpal tunnel so the typing is rough. I'm also starting to get
some eye strain.

I'm online more than not, but right now I'm frustrated.