The Pleasures of Digital Discussions by Yancey/Final Thoughts for Rhetoric and Technology Class

In the article "The Pleasures of Digital Discussions: Lessons, Challenges, Recommendations, and Reflections" by Kathleen Blake Yancey, the author takes a look at the several types of technology an instructor has available to him or her to enhance, assist, or even completely teach a class. I thought it was interesting, because it considered even the use of e-mail, which I take for granted for contacting my students and having them contact me, yet I realize some professors are uncomfortable with even that medium.

This was a good reflective article for me to read as this class came to a close because it showed that it might not matter which, if any, technologies we choose to use in our classroom. It showed the advantages and disadvantages of each, and I agreed with much of them. E-mail, for example, proves a valuable asset for students who might have trouble with face-to-face communication, or even when last-minute communication must take place and several people must be contacted at once (such as when a class must be cancelled because of an emergency).

I thought I'd look at some of the technologies both mentioned in the article and also during our class, citing my thoughts on these mediums, for my final blog for my Rhetoric and Technology Class:

E-mail: I'm so comfortable with using e-mail to enhance the communication between my students and me that I was surprised to see this listed as a "possible" communication tool. Perhaps it is just my profession, and because I am often away from one of the two campuses where I teach, that I am so dependent upon it. I do think it helps some students contact me about ideas or concerns they have about class that they might be uncomfortable talking to me about face-to-face, especially if they are a more reserved student or at the beginning of a semester, when a student is trying to decide if I'm approachable.

Listserv: I like listservs to enhance an in-classroom conversation. Listservs prove valuable to provide students a chance to think about what has been said in class and then to thoughtfully give feedback on the ideas in a trackable format. It, again, also helps students who might not like to speak up in class. I often use Blackboard's ediscussion capabilities to help my workshop groups find each other and "chat" outside of the classrrom outside of the traditional meeting time, which helps students with busy schedules.

Also, as a graduate student I've extensively used the Blackboard listservs set up to encourage communication between students, and this has been wonderful for me. I can read through the list of posts, consider my own position, and then write my response. It somewhat alleviates the "aggressive" nature of responding in the classroom, where students who think quickly on their feet get heard the most. I feel I'm a little more reflective, and so are others.

Web pages: I've created my own Web page, using FrontPage, for personal use but have also adapted it somewhat to reflect my work and student life. I debated on whether I should keep the personal and career aspects of my life separate on different Web pages, but so far have decided that, as a communicator, all of these things reflect one me and so I'd like to keep it together.

I think Web pages can prove valuable for students who miss a class if the instructor is willing to post a synopsis of what happened at her site, perhaps on a blog. Also this can be a place to store documents that students can download.

Blogs: I like blogs for classes where journals are used, or perhaps it is a place where students can post their work and allow other students to offer feedback. The blog doesn't work for students who write personally and are uncomfortable posting that work on the Internet for all to see.

Wikis: I've obviously not been a fan of the wiki, just as I'm not a fan of SharePoint. I think it takes more work just to keep up with the changes that happens on these mediums than to actually do the work. Because there is no "control" by one person as to the content of what is being posted, the mediums are too volatile for me. SharePoint frustrated me in this class because I had to constantly check for changes in class readings and what was expected to be done, as well for postings that didn't seem to be organized. Wikis, such as the wiki we used for this class, proved frustrating because anyone could change what I wrote without providing a good reason for it -- this would never fly in a writer/editor relationship, and it's bad practice. (I also thought the layout messy, and that it was too easy to revert to earlier editions -- just too hard to keep track of it.)

In closing, I believe that technology is:
1. a valuable tool to assist traditional classroom teaching, but should not take the place of face-to-face interaction. I think technology has increasingly fragmented our society, and that most of us are so busy playing/working on the Internet that we don't know our own neighbors. Technology definitely has its place -- it just shouldn't take over living away from our computers.
2. That said, I love the idea of technology for teaching for students who can't get to the traditional classroom because of work/home obligations. I believe education should be available to anyone, and technology allows people to learn from anywhere, at any time. This is most valuable.

Research in the future should on technology in the writing classroom should be empirical, measuring the students' reactions to learning online and whether or not they found it assisted their writing or hindered it. Did they miss having face-to-face discussions? Were they more comfortable sharing their opinions as a post? Did their writing improve in an online format, or did it fare better in a traditional classroom? How was community built -- was it? Research is currently being done in these areas, but technology is still relatively new to education and so more reflection should be done before we allow technology take over personal interactions. I would miss that if I taught exclusively through technology.

Teaching Composition Online: No Longer the Second Best Choice by Leslie Blair

This article describes some of the advantages of teaching online, namely, forcing students to improve their writing because they must communicate entirely online. Since writing is their only medium, students must learn to write in order to communicate with each other, the author claims, and helps the students to understand audience.

I think there is some validity to Blair's argument. Perhaps writing comes so naturally to me -- and talking as well -- that I don't see the difference between face-to-face community and an online one. I know that there are some people with whom I can chat more easily when I'm not looking them in the face, and this is more true for my newer relationships than my older ones. So perhaps for students who don't know each other well in a new classroom but are expected to build an intimate writing community with them before a semester ends, sometimes for subjects that are intimate to the writers themselves, the online community is a viable medium.

TETYC article by Juan Flores and Becky Flores

A new article in Teaching English In the Two-Year College claims that, as composition classes move more towards electronic teaching and collaboration, the drop and failure rate for our first-year classes seems to be increasing. The Floreses state that we must remember that our students are at varying degrees of dependency when they take our classes, but are usually first-year freshmen and still figuring out how to be responsible.

Well. This is a totally new argument for traditional classroom teaching, in my book. While I still see technology as a viable tool to assist my teaching and to help collaboration, I think it's important that we realize that we are still trying to estabish community, and that community seems to be stronger when it is built face to face. Yes, sometimes it's easier to state my opinion when I'm not looking someone directly in the eye, but when I do learn to stand up for my opinions and tell someone to their face, it's liberating in a way. The same goes for writing. I do take my writing more seeriously when someone is wiling to sit down with me about it, rather than shooting off an e-mail.

Connecting Video Games and Storytelling to Teach Narrative: Composition by Zoevera Ann Jackson

I really liked this article. While the argument in support of using video games to teach writing wasn't too well supported, I did think it was a good idea, especially in the practical sense of teaching creative writing. I'm all about practicality, and I think if you show student writers how they can actually use writing to make a buck after school. (In fact, I'm surprised that more people in the class don't support teaching brochures, as it certainly shows organization and focus, as well as good detail, and it's a skill many writers use in marketing.) I don't know if I'd teach writing for video games in the composition classroom, but I'd love it in the creative writing class.

Teaching with the World Wide Web by Handa

I very much like this article because it points out one of the real pluses of teaching writing via the Web: bringing in techniques other than strict text in order to teach writing. While reading is obviously an important factor of learning to write, as teachers we need to realize that students respond to different types of stimula, including images. Showing students that communication happens through several mediums -- photos, movies, and even where texts is placed -- appeals to the students that think more visually than through words. And as much as I like to write, I have to admit that when I get a brochure, the first thing I do is look at the images. They're important, and students should learn to recognize their uses and how they are also used to sway them.

Musings spurred by the Chronicle of Higher Education

I read an article on the online version of the Chronicle today about how graduate programs have automated letters of recommendation, and how that has been problematic for professors who'd rather write the actual letters than toil through the Web sites.

Huh. And I thought the computer was supposed to make our work easier for us ... you know, I'm so not anti-technology, but this class has forced me to realize that I probably am a dissenting factor when it comes to teaching freshman composition with technology. I wanted to think it could be advantageous, and in some ways it probably is, but in other ways I think I know now why I'll largely continue teaching the way I have been. It's not that I don't like technology or that I'm uncomfortable with it, it's that I realize that there are so many added complications that it causes. We can shrug them off in class, but ... well, for me, I'm realizing that technology probably is just a tool, and that's where I'll keep it. To teach with it or to expect other students to maneuver through it takes more work than just teaching them strategies to write, which is what we should be doing.

Fools Rush In by DeWitt/Dickson

According to DeWitt and Dickson, "Early research in teh field of computers and composition strongly suggested that sound pedagogy should always begin with what we already hold to be true about teaching writing: that the technology should be secondary and used as a means to achieve our primary goal of facilitating student learning. Not only does this sell short the possibilities for inventing pedagogy that grows out of our experiences with various technologies, but it also paints an unrealistic picture of how innovative classroom applications of technology are created. Often, computer-rich assignments and classroom activities grow out of teachers' experiences with the technology itself" (Teaching Writing with Computers 69).

Well, huh. I guess I'm old school after a mere two years of teaching and being only 32, because I agree with the former. I still see my computer as being a tool to help me write, but not the reason why I should write. In fact, I find the above statement to reflect more about the teacher's need to be entertained in the classroom -- these professors admit that they started all this because they were bored with their old pedagogy -- rather than focusing on the needs of the students to learn how to write.

However, I am entertaining introducing a technology-based project in my Comp 2 class -- after they complete two other assignments that have more to do with their OWN interests and what THEY need to research, not what I'd want them to discover based on my own interests. This goes back to what I inherently believe about teaching composition: Students would be more interested in writing if they understood it is real to their lives and essential to understanding themselves and the worlds around them. They get that when they are allowed to pick their subjects on their own terms. While I do feel it would be beneficial to have students study such things as anti-censorship, on a freshman level I just don't know if this is of interest to all of them -- and I'd be losing students who don't plan on working in a communications field.