I appreciate Selfe's position in the piece, "Tackling a Fundamental Problem" that people must come first, then pedagogies ought to be emphasized, followed by technologies. As someone who fears technology because of the potential distance and separation that it creates between people socially, relationally and in terms of face to face interactions, I applaud Selfe's emphasis on considering prioritizing people and considering their relationships to technology, rather than idolizing technology. I think because there is danger in separating the two or seeing them in total opposition, which I think happens (perhaps not in terms of scholarly work but when technology is implemented without critical or careful regard for its affordances and limitations). I fear when working with computers, or incorporating technology, and/or using digital media is done in uncritical ways, as academic institutions may run the risk of, while emphasizing technologies, also limiting a human approach or personalized factors. I appreciate that Selfe poses an idea that would not make the two cease to be diametrically opposed or forever at odds, in my mind, and hopefully also in practice. Similarly, Brooks, Lindgreen and Warner helps us readers to see that the focus ought to be on people first, then agency or outcomes of social change (with the aid of digital technologies?). However, these areas do not (have to) exist in a totally separate realm from one another. Perhaps this is one area that we may further bridge (one area of) this digital divide.
I found Sirc's metaphor thought-provoking that instructors may serve as a guide for students, while composition classrooms may be representative of a museum. While idealistically, I appreciate this concept, in practice, I also experience familiar jitters, especially when I'm reminded of how ill-equipped I feel to handle technology myself, much less serve as a guide my students in their tour of the museum of digital compositions. Undoubtedly this is the reason why Selfe stresses the need for teachers to "have opportunities to learn, explore, evaluate, re-try" so that we may become more well trained and comfortable with such technologies. Indeed, I need to, for myself personally and professionally, as well as an composition instructor, to "identify a sustainable system of support for such projects." I must drawn from, the resources that are available, listen to the collective experiences, consider the stakeholders and pay attention to success and failure stories surrounding digital technologies and digital literacies.
Furthermore, Bjork and Schwartz put forth some wonderfully thought provoking concepts in their "paradigm for mobile composition." Truly, rhetorical activity does exist, and knowledge and meaning making happens, and writing occurs, many times, perhaps more often, outside of academic spaces. Writing is no longer isolated to tradition classroom spaces (was it ever?), but especially now with the advent of new technology, mobile devices, laptops, WIFI, apps on smart phones, etc. Wireless networks do "redefine the classroom" and allow for "student-student collaboration" and reconfigure composition instruction and interactions. Rather than seeing in class writing and meaning making and out of class writing and meaning making as entirely separate realms, we need to visualize them as both important works that we, as scholars and educators, and our students actively, daily, engage in.
I do see how incorporating mobile assignments could further help to destabilize the dichotomy of digital or traditional, and open up possibilities for hybrid classrooms to emerge, and flourish. Now, to make the plunge or jump into the deep end. Eeep!
Hi Danielle: I really appreciated the connection you make between the role of wireless and mobile and the decentering/destructuring of the classroom in potentially positive ways. I think writing teachers face a challenge in the academy, as the expectation is always that we need to be teaching those linear essays that very few people write in outside of the academy and fewer and fewer are continuing to do inside the academy. I loved the idea of writing in the wild as a type of field work approach, and the question is how to balance diverse locations in writing classroom, as I think our relevance is tied to our ability to help students compose in multiple locations in these less linear, formal, alphabetic modes that restrict us as teachers. Thanks, Kris
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