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The advent of the personal computer
has permeated every aspect of postmodern American life. A staple
of everyday work, all domains have been greatly affected by the
introduction of personal computing to the workplace. As a platform
for content creation and dissemination, the personal computer has
begun the democratization of content. The first domain of content
creation that has experienced the impact of the computer revolution
has been the writer. Even from the earliest word processing programs
running on glacially underpowered 286's, the computer has proven
itself to be a truly indispensable tool to the modern writer. Within
the university setting, this impact has been enhanced, as technical
progress has allowed for new and exciting ways for students and
professors to collaborate electronically. Despite problems with
funding and various technology issues,
the promise of what technology can provide the university environment
may prove invaluable to revitalizing both student
attitudes on the university, as well as the academic process
in general. Ideally, the goal of introducing computer-enabled writing
to a university setting should give way to a paradigm of teaching
unobstructed by the technology employed.
The present classroom environment is currently
under mass deconstruction due to the mass penetration of the Internet
as a tool for both education and writing. Hypertextual classroom
content, for instance, can work to highly integrate disparate forms
of thought in the classroom. By teaching the worth of writing through
massive, yet passive, linking within documents, students can learn
to draw upon the vast range of knowledge available on the Internet.
The value of this, I feel, is the process of rapid recombination
of data. Through piecing together wildly different forms of thought,
students can find novel ways to approach the problems presented
in classrooms, and learn to integrate schools of thought long considered
discrete. Douglas Eyman of the University of North Carolina contributes
three such benefits of hypertext in his hypertext paper, "Hypertext
And/As Collaboration in the Computer-Facilitated Writing Classroom":
1. Hypertext promotes dialogue.
2. Hypertext can be constructed as a collaborative medium, and
it makes possible forms of collaboration that emphasize the social
construction of meaning.
3. Hypertext can be used in nearly any computer-facilitated classroom.
Later in this paper I will challenge the necessity
of a computer-facilitated classroom, but Eyman's claim as to the
central strength of hypertext, collaborative learning in a socially
constructed manner is vital. Hypertext allows for the classroom
to change from the sermon it has become, to the seminar it always
should have been.
The advent of new and promising publishing technologies
on the Internet may have some genuinely positive impacts on the
university environment. These technologies allow for a very real
and vibrant atmosphere of collaboration within the university. Collaborative
work in the university system is enhanced by the merger of computing
and writing. Discussion boards allow for a conversational approach
to extend course topics, combined with a static copy of what has
been said for easy indexing. By providing a neutral ground for posting
information and discussion, academic freedom
can be preserved and even fostered. In John
Schumann and Don Favareau's class on Biosemiotics, an extensive
online discussion board developed, as each student brought to the
board their own influences and ideas of the new topics at hand.
The instructors set up several discussion boards, each with a different
topic to discuss. The resulting recombination of information possible
from using computerized writing technologies in a collaborative
form has far-reaching possibilities.
Other technologies besides the discussion board
may have a significant impact on the academic life at UCLA. One
such technology I feel holds strong promise is the wikiwiki. A solely
collaborative web-publishing technique, the wikiwiki allows for
all users to make amendments to documents. A group paper can be
worked on dynamically from the same page, each participant making
edits and additions as their leisure, The ultimate product fashioned
by the group will be a wholly collaborative work. At UCLA, it could
work to revitalize the group project as a viable teaching tool,
as each student can work on the document on their own time, instead
of having to negotiate wildly different time schedules. For a real
world example of the power of the wiki, anyone can go and visit
www.wikipedia.com.
Described in its about page, the "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia
written collaboratively by its readers. The site is a WikiWiki,
meaning that anyone, including you, can also edit any article right
now by clicking on the Edit this page link that appears in every
Wikipedia article." A mass collaborative effort, a academic
department, or single class, could adapt Wikipedia's structure to
engage the class as a mass collaborative effort, creating a new
tool for effective learning.
The long-distance transmission of information
hints at the prospect of true distance education.
A professor can easily disseminate written information via the Internet.
The students, in turn, can easily transmit their work to the professor
from wherever they may be with an Ethernet connection or phone jack.
Me? I am writing this paper at 3 o'clock in the morning, in bed,
preparing to email it via my apartment's wireless router. Furthermore,
extreme portability of work written on the computer can allow for
diversity of computing platforms. Technologies such as Adobe's Portable
Document Format (PDF) exist to allow for extreme cross-platform
compatibility of documents. From Adobe's
Acrobat page: PDF is a "a standard adopted by governments
and enterprises worldwide, Adobe PDF is a reliable format for electronic
document exchange that preserves document integrity so files can
be viewed and printed on a variety of platforms." To be sure,
if a professor wished to send out a document to each of his student,
he has the ability to email a PDF copy of the work and know that
it will be received by each student, and will be reproduced in the
same fashion on each student's computer no matter what. Classes
I have attended at UCLA have just began to implement this process
in order to cut down on costs for both the university and the student.
With the advent of high-speed data transmission technologies, and
platform independent content, written work at the university level
can be removed from the classroom.
A far more practical impact of computerized
writing techniques in the university setting has been the democratization
of publishing techniques. The immediate impact of this is the ability
for the university to start online publications wherein the student
body can learn and actually participate in the publishing process.
Free publishing engines such as Movable
Type allow for the easy mechanization of building pages. Using
servers provided by the university, the costs to publish go to zero.
As a result, valuable practical publication writing skills can be
honed in an arena that will see actual publication. An example of
this is a site that I myself directly involved in as the web designer,
Asia Pacific
Arts. Begun as a pet project of Professor Tom Plate, the website
was founded as a manner to expose students to the process of writing
for a working publication. Indeed, the website has grown beyond
the original scope of its mission, now serving as a part of the
Asia Institute, with full editorial staff, publicity staff, and
audio/video service. Having served for the site from its beginnings
in early 2003, the site demonstrates the ability of computer-enabled
writing to expand past the scope of the university. Despite cuts
to the UCLA budget, these programs can keep such a low overhead
to keep them alive. The costs to a university
funding these projects are shrinking daily, and the barriers
to implementing similar such programs are disappearing rapidly.
Despite all of the benefits the fusion of technology
and writing bring to the classroom, the vitality of personal interaction
of the classroom must be preserved. It can be very easy for the
benefits of computer-assisted teaching to be brought into the mix,
but it should not come at the expense of interaction. I strongly
feel that the technology should exist to enhance the discussions
brought up in class, and enhance the exploration of topics discovered.
This is why I see a great failure in ideas such as distance
education, wherein the true experience of learning from a "mentor"
is completely lost in the process. Having a professor across the
country teaching through video presentations is not acceptable for
the university environment. The most rewarding classes have been
ones wherein I had the ability to actively and personally engage
the professor in furthering my understanding of the course topics.
The promise of technology lies in its ability
to actually heighten personal interaction. This may strike you,
the reader, as being counter-intuitive, but I feel rather strongly
on this point. What the personal computer allows for the university
process is actually the removal of the impersonal from the classroom.
As the methods of written transmission develop, the goal becomes
transparency in the process. Since the technical aspects of the
work can be done anywhere, at any point, they can be removed from
the classroom setting, allowing for a much more enriching classroom
experience, improving both student attitudes
and professor involvement. So long as class
sizes remain untouched, this vision of the classroom is the
promise of the marriage of the computer and the writer's pen.
The introduction of computers to the classroom environment has expanded
the possibilities of university education. Previous barriers to
information access can be lifted by the proper utilization of technology.
Despite the infinite promises of the integration of technology and
writing at the university, it is vitally important to remember the
absolute importance of personal interaction between instructor and
student. Computerized communication can only capture a small segment
of human interaction, and should not transplant real interaction
in the university
Related Links:
Alexander, Bryan, et al. "A Few Words About Teaching
Writing with Computer" The Journal Online. ETC Group. September
1997.
http://www.thejournal.com/magazine/vault/articleprintversion.cfm?aid=1919
Ard, Josh. "On the Changing Prominence of Computers
in Legal Education." Michigan Bar Journal. July 2001.
http://www.michbar.org/journal/pdf/pdf4article291.pdf
Burns, Hugh, et al. "Position Statements"
The Way We Will Have Become. The Future (Histories) of Computers
and Writing. Texas Tech University. May 29, 1998.
http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/3.2/coverweb/townhall1.html#speakers
Burns, Hugh. "Review of Critical Perspectives
on Computers and Composition Instruction." JAC. University
of Georgia. Vol 10. Issue 1. 1990.
Rutgers University. "Using Computer Technology
in Writing Instruction." Rutgers Writing Program. Rutgers University.
2000
http://wp.rutgers.edu/teachers/general/teacher_resources/tech.html
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