Describe your relationship to computer technology as a student, as a teacher, and as a human being in the world. What do you use it for? Do you find it necessary? A hindrance? 2) How does Wysocki define "new media" and how do you see this connecting with your notions of teaching with technology? (or do you?)
“technologies can affect writers’ thinking processes in real ways”(qtd. in Wysocki 11)
My first interaction with a computer was at 10 years old when our town library switched from card catalogs to computer card catalogs. Instead of thumbing through the cards at the high risk of getting a paper cut, the computer provided a huge screen with large green type that helped readers find books. As a young student, I thought that the computer was grand as I saw it as a means to make information easier to find.In the 8th grade, I took a class called Computer Discovery. It was essentially a typing class and we learned how the computer was the new aged type writer; this use for the computer proved to be better than the typewriter because if there was an error, we could erase and redo it before printing. It was this class that showed me how computers could be used to produce papers that we had for other classes. (I can still hear Ms. Gunn’s voice “hands on the home row keys, everyone”). So, as time passed, I began to type papers in WordPad and eventually Word, (although I just recently began to actually compose in a Word document. I still write outlines and initial thoughts with pen and paper). By the time I was in 11th grade, I was teaching a typing class at school to adults in the community.
So, from an early age, computers were about getting things done for me; they were used to type and find resources that may have been needed. In my senior year of high school, I was introduced to e-mail, instant messaging, and even a bit of gaming (solitaire, checkers online) which opened the door to a whole new world of communicative possibilities. Since high school, I have taken more computer classes that have broaden my understanding of what computers are capable of. I’ve joined social networking sites (which I use mainly as a virtual address book), I’ve blogged for classes (I have yet to move to the personal blogging), and I use the computer for research. As a teacher, I have used the WebCT/E-Learning/ Angel sites, blogging, YouTube videos, and research/search engines. My thoughts about “New Media” then are ones that, I dare say, echo and in some ways, extend what Wysocki mentions in Writing New Media.
Wysocki defines new media while simultaneously leaving room for teachers to bring their own beliefs and “ways of knowing” to teach students in the classroom; thus, she vies that new media is not just about analyzing the media itself, but about helping students see how belief systems inform the material that is used (6). She notes “new media needs to be informed by what writing teachers know, precisely because writing teachers focus specifically on texts and how situated people (learn how to) use them and make things happen” (5). Thus, as teachers, we are teaching students to not only engage new media, but to bring their own skills to the table to transform how that mode is received.
For me, this notion of materiality in writing with and for technology, then, becomes even more important because “writing teachers can thus fill a large gap in current scholarship on new media” (7) by teaching materiality and the ways in which modes of technology change our “thinking processes in real ways” (qtd. in Wysocki 11). This change in thinking can not only help students see different perspectives, but it can also help both teachers and students understand how beliefs and the physical medium work together to create meaning.
Ultimately, my thoughts about teaching with technology coincide with this idea of materiality. As I think about my position, particularly as a 402 (Technical and Professional Writing) instructor, this notion of materiality becomes even more important as students are learning, creating, composing, and writing in different spaces, some digital and some not. Wysocki tells us that it is important "that whoever produces the text and whoever consumes it understand ... that the various materialities of a text contribute to how it, like it's producers and consumers, is read and understood" (15). I think that in order to do justice to our classes, we must teach in a way that shows students how they are apart of the conversation. To me, this notion of materiality is one approach.
And so as I think back to my first experiences with technology, I realize that much has changed in that I am definitely more engaged with writing with and in "new media". I also realize that I have been practicing and teaching what Horner calls materiality in many ways. To extend Wysocki's ideas, I think that because computer technology is and continues to change, there has to be more effort to to keep teachers abreast of the many technologies that can inform our classrooms. It's one thing to suggests new approaches, but it's another thing to make those approaches come to life. Until that day comes when teachers are able to view new appraoaches and decided whether or not to adopt them (because there are economic issues at play that will not fund workshops), teachers must continue to use what they have access to, to the best of their abilities, as to teach students how to engage in materiality.
“technologies can affect writers’ thinking processes in real ways”(qtd. in Wysocki 11)
My first interaction with a computer was at 10 years old when our town library switched from card catalogs to computer card catalogs. Instead of thumbing through the cards at the high risk of getting a paper cut, the computer provided a huge screen with large green type that helped readers find books. As a young student, I thought that the computer was grand as I saw it as a means to make information easier to find.In the 8th grade, I took a class called Computer Discovery. It was essentially a typing class and we learned how the computer was the new aged type writer; this use for the computer proved to be better than the typewriter because if there was an error, we could erase and redo it before printing. It was this class that showed me how computers could be used to produce papers that we had for other classes. (I can still hear Ms. Gunn’s voice “hands on the home row keys, everyone”). So, as time passed, I began to type papers in WordPad and eventually Word, (although I just recently began to actually compose in a Word document. I still write outlines and initial thoughts with pen and paper). By the time I was in 11th grade, I was teaching a typing class at school to adults in the community.
So, from an early age, computers were about getting things done for me; they were used to type and find resources that may have been needed. In my senior year of high school, I was introduced to e-mail, instant messaging, and even a bit of gaming (solitaire, checkers online) which opened the door to a whole new world of communicative possibilities. Since high school, I have taken more computer classes that have broaden my understanding of what computers are capable of. I’ve joined social networking sites (which I use mainly as a virtual address book), I’ve blogged for classes (I have yet to move to the personal blogging), and I use the computer for research. As a teacher, I have used the WebCT/E-Learning/ Angel sites, blogging, YouTube videos, and research/search engines. My thoughts about “New Media” then are ones that, I dare say, echo and in some ways, extend what Wysocki mentions in Writing New Media.
Wysocki defines new media while simultaneously leaving room for teachers to bring their own beliefs and “ways of knowing” to teach students in the classroom; thus, she vies that new media is not just about analyzing the media itself, but about helping students see how belief systems inform the material that is used (6). She notes “new media needs to be informed by what writing teachers know, precisely because writing teachers focus specifically on texts and how situated people (learn how to) use them and make things happen” (5). Thus, as teachers, we are teaching students to not only engage new media, but to bring their own skills to the table to transform how that mode is received.
For me, this notion of materiality in writing with and for technology, then, becomes even more important because “writing teachers can thus fill a large gap in current scholarship on new media” (7) by teaching materiality and the ways in which modes of technology change our “thinking processes in real ways” (qtd. in Wysocki 11). This change in thinking can not only help students see different perspectives, but it can also help both teachers and students understand how beliefs and the physical medium work together to create meaning.
Ultimately, my thoughts about teaching with technology coincide with this idea of materiality. As I think about my position, particularly as a 402 (Technical and Professional Writing) instructor, this notion of materiality becomes even more important as students are learning, creating, composing, and writing in different spaces, some digital and some not. Wysocki tells us that it is important "that whoever produces the text and whoever consumes it understand ... that the various materialities of a text contribute to how it, like it's producers and consumers, is read and understood" (15). I think that in order to do justice to our classes, we must teach in a way that shows students how they are apart of the conversation. To me, this notion of materiality is one approach.
And so as I think back to my first experiences with technology, I realize that much has changed in that I am definitely more engaged with writing with and in "new media". I also realize that I have been practicing and teaching what Horner calls materiality in many ways. To extend Wysocki's ideas, I think that because computer technology is and continues to change, there has to be more effort to to keep teachers abreast of the many technologies that can inform our classrooms. It's one thing to suggests new approaches, but it's another thing to make those approaches come to life. Until that day comes when teachers are able to view new appraoaches and decided whether or not to adopt them (because there are economic issues at play that will not fund workshops), teachers must continue to use what they have access to, to the best of their abilities, as to teach students how to engage in materiality.
It seems to me that in your 402 space, you'd have to be even more rigid in the old ways, rather than the new. I say this because of the way the work system is, and what we tell our students in terms of online privacy and creating a "digital persona." We tell them to be wary, to be professional, in the digital world, but that's not who any of us are all the time. We are complex people...or maybe just complicated. Either way, we're not easily categorized as professional or personal. We live in both worlds, right?
ReplyDeleteSo it would seem to me that, as a 402 instructor, you'd feel like you need to tell them that, although there is this new media, this digital world for their use, they still need to behave as if there wasn't. They still need to be mostly invested in the world outside of the digital, because employers want to see employees who don't showcase their entire lives online. Isn't that what employees want? I don't know. I think that's what they want - that's what I keep hearing on the news. Don't show that you're a vulnerable person who makes mistakes.
But isn't this new media world about allowing your texts to be influenced by all of the things that you are? That we aren't just an academic being?
I'm just curious as to what your thoughts are on this. We can use the internet to showcase an employment portfolio, for example, but it still has the exact same material as a printed employment portfolio, does it not?
This is definitely a continuation and extension of conversations we're having privately. Now we're having it publicly. But still, it's probably going to be a conversation between you and I alone, and maybe Kristen. And that's it. So how has this digital conversation helped?
I don't really know if this media world is "really" about showing all things that have influenced us...I think that people don't want to see the bad and the ugly, only the good parts. I mean, no one wants to hear about how I did not have a good experience at my last job. What they want to hear is that I have some vital skills that could help them out. So, in this new media world, I think that we are only supposed to show good things. If we talk about bad too much, no one would want to talk to us (and that can go for talking about how great a person is too...at some point, people tune out).
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the online employment portfolio, yes, I think that although it is a different medium, the same approach is taken as the materials are treated as they would be if they were submitted face to face.
Well, this digital conversation is really helping me to see that we hold the same standards to a text, no matter how it is submitted, transmitted, or evaluated. Wysocki's idea of agency and materiality, though, does bring up the importance of awareness when writing...and how we have to pay attention to our relationship to a medium...